LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


MARY  WOLLASTON 


MARY 
WOLLASTON 


BY  HENRY  KITCHELL  WEBSTER 


A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY 

Publishers  New  York 

Published  by  arrangement  with  The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company 


COPYRIGHT  1920 
THB  RIDGWAY  COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT  1920 
THE  BOBBS-ME&RILL  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  Statet  of  America 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
1 


CHAPTER 

I    THE  CIRCASSIAN  GRAND 

II    SEA  DRIFT 18 

III  THE  PEACE  BASIS 34 

IV  THE  PICTURE  PUZZLE 55 

V    JOHN  MAKES  A  POINT  OF  IT        66 

VI    STRINGENDO 76 

VII    No  THOROUGHFARE 87 

VIII    THE  DUMB  PRINCESS    .-....; 102 

IX    IN  HARNESS 122 

X    AN  INTERVENTION 136 

XI    NOT  COLLECTABLE 146 

XII    HICKORY  HILL 156 

XIII  Low  HANGS  THE  MOON 164 

XIV  A  CLAIRVOYANT  INTERVAL        175 

XV    THE  END  OF  IT 186 

XVI    FULL  MEASURE -.     ...  195 

XVII    THE  WAYFARER    ....... 211 

XVIII    A  CASE  OF  NECESSITY 231 

XIX    THE  DRAMATIST 241 

XX    Two  WOMEN  AND  JOHN 255 

XXI    THE  SUBSTITUTE 268 

XXII  THE  FUNDAMENTAL  DIFFERENCE       ....     .     .  277 

XXIII  THE  TERROR 286 

XXIV  THE  WHOLE  STORY  ........    -.     .     .  297 

XXV  DAYBREAK     .       .     .     .     .    ,.;    .     .     .    >     .     .     .  315 

XXVI  JOHN  ARRIVES      ....    >:    >     ...>..  326 

XXVII  SETTLING  PAULA       .     .     .    .    y    .    y    ....  341 

XXVIII  THE  KALEIDOSCOPE  355 


MARY  WOLLASTON 


MARY  WOLLASTON 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  CIRCASSIAN  GRAND 

MISS  LUCILE  WOLLASTON  was  set  to  exude  sym- 
pathy, like  an  aphis  waiting  for  an  overworked  ant  to 
come  down  to  breakfast.  But  there  was  no  sympathizing 
with  the  man  who  came  in  from  a  doctor's  all-night  vigil  like 
a  boy  from  a  ball-game,  gave  her  a  hard  brisk  kiss  on  the 
cheek-bone,  and  then,  before  taking  his  place  at  the  table, 
unfolded  the  morning  paper  for  a  glance  at  the  head-lines. 

If  there  was  something  rigorous  about  the  way  she 
lighted  the  alcohol  lamp  under  the  silver  urn  and  rang  for 
Nathaniel,  the  old  colored  butler,  it  was  from  a  determina- 
tion not  to  let  this  younger  brother  of  hers  put  her  into  a 
flurry  again  as  he  so  often  did.  A  very  much  younger 
brother  indeed,  he  seemed  when  this  mood  was  on  him. 

Miss  Wollaston  was  born  on  the  election  day  that  made 
James  Buchanan  president  of  the  United  States  and  Doctor 
John  within  a  few  days  of  Appomattox.  But  one  would 
have  said,  looking  at  them  here  at  the  breakfast  table  on 
a  morning  in  March  in  the  year  1919,  that  there  was  a  good 
deal  more  than  those  ten  years  between  them.  He  folded 
his  paper  and  sat  down  when  the  butler  suggestively 
pulled  out  his  chair  for  him  and  his  manner  became,  for 
the  moment,  absent,  as  his  eye  fell  upon  a  letter  beside  his 
plate  addressed  in  his  daughter,  Mary's,  handwriting. 


2  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"I  want  a  big  platter  of  ham  and  eggs,  Nat,  sliced  thick. 
And  a  few  of  Lucartha's  wheat  cakes."  He  made  some 
sort  of  good-humored,  half  articulate  acknowledgment  of 
the  old  servitor's  pleasure  in  getting  such  an  order,  but 
one  might  have  seen  that  his  mind  was  a  little  out  of  focus, 
for  it  was  not  exactly  dealing  with  the  letter  either.  He 
sliced  it  open  with  a  table  knife  with  the  precise  movement 
one  would  have  expected  from  a  surgeon  and  disengaged  it 
in  the  same  neat  way  from  its  envelope.  But  he  read  it  as 
if  he  weren't  very  sharply  aware  of  what,  particularly,  it 
had  to  say  and  he  laid  it  beside  his  plate  again  without  any 
comment. 

"Did  you  have  any  sleep  last  night,  at  all?"  Miss 
Wollaston  asked. 

It  brought  him  back  like  a  flash.  "Not  a  wink,"  he  said 
jovially. 

This  was  a  challenge  and  the  look  that  went  with  it, 
one  of  clear  boyish  mischief,  was  one  that  none  of  John 
Wollaston's  other  intimates — and  among  these  I  include  his 
beautiful  young  wife  and  his  two  grown-up  children  by  an 
earlier  marriage — ever  saw.  It  was  a  special  thing  for  this 
sister  who  had  been  a  stately  young  lady  of  twenty  when 
he  was  a  bad  little  boy  of  ten.  She  had  watched  him,  admir- 
ing yet  rather  aghast,  ever  since  then. 

To  the  world  at  large  his  social  charm  lay  in — or  was 
at  least  inseparable  from — his  really  exquisite  manners,  his 
considerateness,  the  touch  of  old-fashioned  punctilio  there 
was  about  him.  His  first  wife  would  have  agreed  with  her 
successor  about  his  possession  of  this  quality  though  they 
would  have  appraised  it  rather  differently.  Only  this  elderly 
unmarried  sister  of  his  felt  the  fascination  of  the  horrible 
about  him. 

This  was  to  some  extent  inherent  in  his  profession.  He 
had  a  reputation  that  was  growing  to  amount  to  fame  as 


THE  CIRCASSIAN  GRAND  3 

a  specialist  in  the  very  wide  field  of  gynecology,  obstetrics 
and  abdominal  surgery.  The  words  themselves  made  Miss 
Wollaston  shudder. 

When  he  replied  to  her  question,  whether  or  not  he  had 
had  any  sleep  at  all,  with  an  open  grin  and  that  triumphant 
"Not  a  wink,"  she  had  a  prophetic  sense  of  what  was  going 
to  happen.  She  was  going  to  ask  him  more  questions  and 
he  was  going  to  tell  her  something  perfectly  ghastly. 

She  felt  herself  slipping,  but  she  pulled  up.  "What's 
in  Mary's  letter?"  she  asked. 

She  knew  that  this  was  not  quite  fair,  and  the  look  that 
it  brought  to  his  face — a  twinge  of  pain  like  neuralgia — 
awakened  a  sharp  compunction  in  her.  She  did  not  know 
why — at  least  not  exactly  why — his  relation  with  his  daugh- 
ter should  be  a  sore  spot  in  his  emotional  life,  but  she  knew 
quite  well  that  this  was  true.  There  was  on  the  surface, 
nothing,  or  nowhere  near  enough,  to  account  for  it. 

He  had  always  been,  Miss  Wollaston  felt,  an  adorer  to 
the  verge  of  folly  of  this  lovely  pale-blonde  daughter  of 
his.  He  had  indulged  her  outrageously  but  without  any 
evident  bad  results.  Upon  her  mother's  death,  in  1912  that 
was,  when  Mary  was  seventeen  years  old,  she  had,  to  the 
utmost  limit  that  a  daughter  could  compass,  taken  her 
mother's  place  in  the  bereaved  man's  life.  She  had  foregone 
the  college  course  she  was  prepared  for  and  had  taken  over 
very  skilfully  the  management  of  her  father's  household; 
even,  in  a  surprisingly  successful  way,  too,  the  motherly 
guidance  of  her  two-years-younger  brother,  Rush.  Miss 
Wollaston's  testimony  on  these  two  points  was  unbiased  as 
it  was  ungrudging.  She  had  offered  herself  for  that  job 
and  had  not  then  been  wanted. 

Two  years  later  there  had  been  a  quarrel  between  John 
and  his  daughter.  She  fell  in  love,  or  thought  she  did — for 
indeed,  how  could  a  child  of  nineteen  know? — with  a  man 


4  MARY  WOLLASTON 

to  whom  her  father  decisively  and  almost  violently  objected. 
Just  how  well  founded  this  objection  was  Miss  Wollaston 
had  no  means  of  deciding  for  herself.  There  was  nothing 
flagrantly  wrong  with  the  man's  manners,  position  or  pros- 
pects ;  but  she  attributed  to  her  brother  a  wisdom  altogether 
beyond  her  own  in  matters  of  that  sort  and  sided  with  him 
against  the  girl  without  misgiving.  And  the  fact  that  the 
man  himself  married  another  girl  within  a  month  or  two 
of  Mary's  submission  to  her  father's  will,  might  be  taken 
as  a  demonstration  that  he  was  right. 

John  had  done  certainly  all  he  could  to  make  it  up  with 
the  girl.  He  tried  to  get  her  to  go  with  him  on  what  was 
really  a  junket  to  Vienna — there  was  no  better  place  to  play 
than  the  Vienna  of  those  days — though  there  was  also  some 
sort  of  surgical  congress  there  that  spring  that  served  him 
as  an  excuse,  and  Mary,  Miss  Wollaston  felt,  had  only  her- 
self to  blame  for  what  happened. 

She  had  elected  to  be  tragic ;  preferred  the  Catskills  with 
a  dull  old  aunt  to  Vienna  with  a  gay  young  father.  John 
went  alone,  sore  from  the  quarrel  and  rather  adrift. 
In  Vienna,  he  met  Paula  Carresford,  an  American 
opera  singer,  young,  extraordinarily  beautiful,  and  of  unim- 
peachable respectability.  They  were  in  Vienna  together  the 
first  week  in  August,  1914.  They  got  out  together,  sailed 
on  the  same  ship  for  America  and  in  the  autumn  of  that 
year,  here  in  Chicago,  in  the  most  decorous  manner  in  the 
world,  John  married  her. 

There  was  a  room  in  Miss  Wollaston's  well  ordered  mind 
which  she  had  always  guarded  as  an  old-fashioned  New 
England  village  housewife  used  to  guard  the  best  parlor, 
no  light,  no  air,  no  dust,  Holland  covers  on  all  the  furniture. 
Rigorously  she  forbore  to  speculate  upon  the  attraction 
which  had  drawn  John  and  Paula  together — upon  what  had 


THE  CIRCASSIAN  GRAND  5 

happened  between  them — upon  how  the  thing  had  looked 
and  felt  to  either  of  them.  She  covered  the  whole  episode 
with  one  blanket  observation :  she  supposed  it  was  natural 
in  the  circumstances. 

And  there  was  much  to  be  thankful  for.  Paula  was 
well-bred;  she  was  amiable;  she  was  "nice";  nice  to  an 
amazing  degree,  considering.  She  had  made  a  genuine  social 
success.  She  had  given  John  a  new  lease  on  life,  turned 
back  the  clock  for  him,  oh  —  years. 

Mary,  Miss  Wollaston  felt,  had  taken  it  surprisingly 
well.  At  the  wedding  she  had  played  her  difficult  part  admir- 
ably and  during  the  few  months  she  had  stayed  at  home 
after  the  wedding,  she  had  not  only  kept  on  good  terms  with 
Paula  but  had  seemed  genuinely  to  like  her.  In  the  spring 
of  the  next  year,  1915,  she  had,  indeed,  left  home  and  had 
not  been  back  since  except  for  infrequent  visits.  But  then 
there  was  reason  enough — excuse  enough,  anyhow — for 
that.  The  war  was  enveloping  them  all.  Rush  had  left 
his  freshman  year  at  Harvard  uncompleted  to  go  to  France 
and  drive  an  ambulance  (he  enlisted  a  little  later  in  the 
French  Army).  Mary  had  gone  to  New  York  to  work  on 
the  Belgian  War  Relief  Fund,  and  she  had  been  working 
away  at  it  ever  since. 

There  was  then  no  valid  reason — no  reason  at  all  unless 
she  were  willing  to  go  rummaging  in  that  dark  room  of  her 
mind  for  it — why  John  should  always  wince  like  that  when 
one  reminded  him  of  Mary.  It  was  a  fact,  though,  that  he 
did,  and  his  sister  was  too  honest-minded  to  pretend  she  did 
not  know  it. 

He  answered  her  question  now  evenly  enough.  "She's 
working  harder  than  ever,  she  says,  closing  up  her  office. 
She  wants  some  more  money,  of  course.  And  she's  heard 
from  Rush.  He's  coming  home.  He  may  be  turning  up 


6  MARY  WOLLASTON 

almost  any  day  now.  She  hopes  to  get  a  wire  from  him 
so  that  she  can  meet  him  in  New  York  and  have  a  little 
visit  with  him,  she  says,  before  he  comes  on  here." 

It  was  on  Miss  Wollaston's  tongue  to  ask  crisply,  "Why 
doesn't  she  come  home  herself  now  that  her  Fund  is  shut- 
ting up  shop  ?"  But  that  would  have  been  to  state  in  so  many 
words  the  naked  question  they  tacitly  left  unasked.  There 
was  another  idea  in  her  brother's  mind  that  she  thought  she 
could  deal  with.  He  had  betrayed  it  by  the  emphasis  he  put 
on  the  fact  that  it  was  to  Mary  and  not  to  himself  that 
Rush  had  written  the  news  that  he  was  coming  home.  Cer- 
tainly there  was  nothing  in  that. 

"Why,"  she  asked  brightly,  "don't  you  go  to  New  York 
yourself  and  meet  him  ?" 

He  answered  instantly,  almost  sharply,  "I  can't  do  that." 
Then  not  liking  the  way  it  sounded  in  his  own  ear,  he  gave 
her  a  reason.  "If  you  knew  the  number  of  babies  that 
are  coming  along  within  the  next  month  .  .  ." 

"You  need  a  rest,"  she  said,  "badly.  I  don't  see  how 
you  live  through  horrors  like  that.  But  there  must  be  other 
people — somebody  who  can  take  your  work  for  you  for  a 
while.  It  can't  make  all  that  difference." 

"It  wouldn't,"  he  admitted,  "nine  times  out  of  ten.  That 
call  I  got  last  evening  that  broke  up  the  dinner  party, — • 
an  interne  at  the  County  Hospital  would  have  done  just  as 
well  as  I.  There  was  nothing  to  it  at  all.  Oh,  it  was  a 
sort  of  satisfaction  to  the  husband's  feelings,  I  suppose,  to 
pay  me  a  thousand  dollars  and  be  satisfied  that  nobody  in 
town  could  have  paid  more  and  got  anything  better.  But 
you  see,  you  never  can  tell.  The  case  I  was  called  in  on  at 
four  o'clock  this  morning  was  another  thing  altogether." 
A  gleam  had  come  into  his  eyes  again  as  over  the  memory 
of  some  brilliantly  successful  audacity.  The  gray  old  look 
had  gone  out  of  his  face. 


THE  CIRCASSIAN  GRAND  7 

"I  don't  altogether  wonder  that  Pollard  blew  up,"  he 
added,  "except  that  a  man  in  that  profession  has  got  no  busi- 
ness to — ever." 

The  coffee  urn  offered  Miss  Wollaston  her  only  means 
of  escape  but  she  didn't  avail  herself  of  it.  She  let  herself 
go  on  looking  for  a  breathless  minute  into  her  brother's 
face.  Then  she  asked  weakly,  "What  was  it  ?" 

"Why,  Pollard  ..."  John  Wollaston  began  but 
then  he  stopped  short  and  listened.  "I  thought  I  heard  Paula 
coming,"  he  explained. 

"Paula  won't  be  down  for  hours,"  Miss  Wollaston  said, 
"but  I  do  not  see  why  she  shouldn't  hear,  since  she  is  a 
married  woman  and  your  own  wife  .  .  ." 

Her  brother's  "Precisely  "  cut  across  that  sentence  with 
a  snick  like  a  pair  of  shears  and  left  a  little  silence  behind 
it. 

"I  think  she'll  be  along  in  a  minute,"  he  went  on.  "She 
always  does  come  to  breakfast.  Why  did  you  think  she 
wouldn't  to-day?" 

This  was  one  of  Miss  Wollaston's  minor  crosses.  The 
fact  was  that  on  the  comparatively  rare  occasions  when  Doc- 
tor John  himself  was  present  for  the  family  breakfast  at  the 
custom-consecrated  hour,  Paula  managed  about  two  times  in 
five  to  put  in  a  last-minute  appearance.  This  was  not  what 
annoyed  Miss  Wollaston.  She  was  broad-minded  enough 
to  be  aware  that  to  an  opera  singer,  the  marshaling  of  one's 
whole  family  in  the  dining-room  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing might  seem  a  barbarous  and  revolting  practise  and  even 
occasional  submissions  to  it,  acts  of  real  devotion.  She  was 
not  really  bitterly  annoyed  either  by  Paula's  oft  repeated 
assertion  that  she  always  came  to  breakfast.  Paula  was  one 
of  those  temperamental  persons  who  have  to  be  forgiven  for 
treating  their  facts — atmospherically.  But  that  John,  a 
man  of  science,  enlisted  under  the  banner  of  truth,  should 


8  MARY  WOLLASTON 

back  this  assertion  of  his  wife's,  in  the  face  of  overwhelming 
evidence  to  the  contrary,  really  required  resignation  to  put 
up  with;  argued  a  blindness,  an  infatuation,  which  seemed 
to  his  sister  hardly  decent.  Because  after  all,  facts  were 
facts,  and  you  didn't  alter  them  by  pretending  that  they  did 
not  exist. 

So  instead  of  answering  her  brother's  question,  she  sat 
a  little  straighter  in  her  chair,  and  compressed  her  lips. 

He  smiled  faintly  at  that  and  added,  "Anyhow  she  said 
she'd  be  along  in  a  minute  or  two." 

"Oh,"  said  Miss  Wollaston,  "you  have  wakened  her 
then.  I  would  have  suggested  that  the  poor  child  be  left 
asleep  this  morning." 

Now  he  saw  that  she  had  something  to  tell  him.  "Noth- 
ing went  wrong  last  night  after  I  left,  I  hope." 

"Oh,  not  wrong,"  Miss  Wollaston  conceded,  "only  the 
Whitneys  went  of  course,  when  you  did,  and  the  Byrnes,  and 
Wallace  Hood,  but  Portia  Stanton  and  that  new  husband  of 
hers  stayed.  It  was  his  doing,  I  suppose.  You  might  have 
thought  he  was  waiting  all  the  evening  for  just  that  thing 
to  happen.  They  went  up  to  Paula's  studio — Paula  invited 
me,  of  course,  but  I  excused  myself — and  they  played  and 
sang  until  nearly  two  o'clock  this  morning.  It  was  all 
perfectly  natural,  I  suppose.  And  still  I  did  think  that 
Paula  might  have  sung  earlier,  down  in  the  drawing-room 
when  you  asked  her  to." 

"She  was  perfectly  right  to  refuse."  He  caught  his 
sister  up  rather  short  on  that.  "I  shouldn't  have  asked  her. 
It  was  very  soon  after  dinner.  They  weren't  a  musical 
crowd  anyway,  except  Novelli.  It's  utterly  unfair  to  expect 
a  person  like  Paula  to  perform  unless  she  happens  to  be  in 
the  mood  for  it.  At  that  she's  extremely  amiable  about  it ; 
never  refuses  unless  she  has  some  real  reason.  What  her 


THE  CIRCASSIAN  GRAND  9 

reason  was  last  night,  I  don't  know,  but  you  may  be  per- 
fectly sure  it  was  sufficient." 

He  would  have  realized  that  he  was  protesting  too  much 
even  if  he  had  not  read  that  comment  in  his  sister's  face. 
But  somehow  he  couldn't  have  pulled  himself  up  but  for 
old  Nat's  appearance  with  the  platter  of  ham  and  eggs  and 
the  first  instalment  of  the  wheat  cakes.  He  was  really 
hungry  and  he  settled  down  to  them  in  silence. 

And,  watching  him  between  the  little  bites  of  dry  toast 
and  sips  of  coffee,  Miss  Wollaston  talked  about  Portia  Stan- 
ton.  Everybody,  indeed,  was  talking  about  Portia  these  days 
but  Miss  Wollaston  had  a  special  privilege.  She  had  known 
Portia's  mother  rather  well, — Naomi  Rutledge  Stanton,  the 
suffrage  leader,  she  was — and  she  had  always  liked  and 
admired  Portia ;  liked  her  better  than  the  younger  and  more 
sensational  daughter,  Rose. 

Miss  Wollaston  hoped,  hoped  with  all  her  heart  that 
Portia  had  not  made  a  tragic  mistake  in  this  matter  of  her 
marriage.  She  couldn't  herself  quite  see  how  a  sensible  girl 
like  Portia  could  have  done  anything  so  reckless  as  to  marry 
a  romantic  young  Italian  pianist,  ten  years  at  least  her  junior. 
It  couldn't  be  denied  that  the  experiment  seemed  to  have 
worked  well  so  far.  Portia  certainly  seemed  happy  enough 
last  night ;  contented.  There  was  a  sort  of  glow  about  her 
there  never  was  before.  But  the  question  was  how  long 
would  it  last.  How  long  would  it  be  before  those  big  brown 
Italian  eyes  began  looking  soulfully  at  somebody  else ;  some- 
body more  .  .  . 

It  was  here  that  Miss  Wollaston  chopped  herself  off 
short,  hearing — this  time  it  was  no  false  alarm — Paula's 
step  in  the  hall.  She'd  have  been  amazed,  scandalized,  pro- 
foundly indignant,  dear  good-hearted  lady  that  she  was,  had 
some  expert  in  the  psychology  of  the  unconscious  pointed 


10  MARY  WOLLASTON 

out  to  her  that  the  reason  she  had  begun  talking-  about  Portia 
was  that  it  gave  her  an  outlet  for  expressing  her  misgivings 
about  her  own  brother's  marriage.  Paula,  of  course,  was  a 
different  thing  altogether. 

What  a  beautiful  creature  she  was,  even  at  eight  o'clock 
in  the  morning  at  the  end  of  an  abruptly  terminated  night's 
sleep.  She  looked  lovelier  than  ever  as  she  came  in  through 
the  shadowy  doorway.  She  wasn't  a  true  blonde  like  Mary. 
Her  thick  strong  hair  was  a  sort  of  golden  glorification  of 
brown,  her  skin  a  warm  tone  of  ivory.  Her  eyes,  set  wide 
apart,  were  brown,  and  the  lashes,  darker  than  her  hair, 
enhanced  the  size  of  them.  The  look  of  power  about  Paula, 
inseparable  from  her  beauty,  was  not  one  of  Miss  Wollaston's 
feminine  ideals.  It  spoke  in  every  line  of  her  figure  as  well 
as  in  the  lineaments  of  her  face ;  in  the  short,  rather  broad, 
yet  cleanly  defined  nose;  in  the  generous  width  of  her  mouth ; 
in  the  sculpturesque  poise  of  her  neck  upon  her  shoulders. 

Paula's  clothes,  too,  worried  her  elderly  sister-in-law  a 
little,  especially  the  house-dresses  that  she  affected.  They 
were  beautiful,  heaven  knew ;  more  simply  beautiful  perhaps 
than  it  was  right  that  clothes  should  be.  There  was  noth- 
ing indecent  about  them.  Dear  Paula  was  almost  surpris- 
ingly nice  in  those  ways.  But  that  thing  she  had  on  now, 
for  instance ; — a  tunic  of  ecru  colored  silk  that  she  had  pulled 
on  over  her  head,  with  a  little  over-dress  of  corn  colored 
tulle,  weighted  artfully  here  and  there  that  it  mightn't  fly 
away.  And  .a  string  of  big  lumpish  amber  beads.  She  could 
have  got  into  that  costume  in  about  two  minutes  and  there 
was  probably  next  to  nothing  under  it.  From  the  on-looker's 
point  of  view,  it  mightn't  violate  decorum  at  all;  indeed, 
clearly  did  not.  But  Miss  Wollaston  herself,  if  she  hadn't 
been  more  or  less  rigidly  laced,  stayed,  gartered,  pinched, 
pried  and  pulled  about;  if  she  could  have  moved  freely  in 
any  direction  without  an  admonitory — "take  care" — from 


THE  CIRCASSIAN  GRAND  11 

some  bit  of  whalebone  somewhere,  wouldn't  have  felt  dressed 
at  all.  There  ought  to  be  something  perpetually  penitential 
about  clothes.  The  biblical  story  of  the  fall  of  man  made 
that  clear,  didn't  it  ? 

John  sprang  up  as  his  wife  came  into  the  room ;  went 
around  the  table  and  held  her  chair  for  her.  "My  dear,  1 
didn't  know  I  was  robbing  you  of  half  a  night's  sleep,"  he 
said.  "You  should  have  turned  me  out." 

She  reached  up  her  strong  white  arms  (the  tulle  sleeves 
did  fall  away  from  them  lather  alarmingly,  and  Miss  Wol- 
laston  concentrated  her  attention  on  the  spiggot  of  the  coffee 
urn)  for  his  head  as  he  bent  over  her  and  pulled  it  down 
for  a  kiss. 

"I  didn't  need  any  more  sleep.  I  had  such  a  joyous  time 
last  night.  I  sang  the  whole  of  Maliela,  and  a  lot  of  Thais. 
I  don't  know  what  all.  Novelli's  a  marvel ;  the  best  accom- 
panist I've  found  yet.  But,  oh,  my  darling,  I  did  feel  such 
a  pig  about  it." 

He  was  back  in  his  own  chair  by  now  and  his  sister 
breathed  a  little  more  freely. 

"Pig?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,  because  you  weren't  there,"  said  Paula.  "Because 
I  didn't  sing  before,  when  you  asked  me  to." 

"Dearest !"  John  remonstrated, — pleased  though  with  the 
apology,  you  could  see  with  half  an  eye, — "it  was  inexcusable 
of  me  to  have  asked  you.  It  was  a  dull  crowd  from  a  musical 
point  of  view.  The  only  thing  I  minded  was  having,  my- 
self, put  you  into  a  position  where  you  had  to  refuse.  I  am 
glad  you  were  able  to  make  it  up  to  yourself  after." 

"That  was  not  why  I  didn't,'''  Paula  said.  She  always 
spoke  rather  deliberately  and  never  interrupted  any  one.  "I 
mean  it  wasn't  because  the  others  weren't  especially  musical. 
But  I  couldn't  have  sung  without  asking  Novelli  to  play. 
And  he  couldn't  have  refused — being  new  and  a  little  on 


12  MARY  WOLLASTON 

trial  you  know.  And  that  drawing-room  piano,  so  badly  out 
of  tune,  would  have  been  terrible  for  him.  There's  no 
knowing  what  he  mightn't  have  done." 

John's  face  beamed  triumph.  "I  might  have  known  you 
had  an  unselfish  reason  for  it,"  he  said.  He  didn't  look  at 
his  sister  but,  of  course,  the  words  slanted  her  way. 

It  was  perfectly  characteristic  of  Miss  Wollaston  that 
she  did  not,  however,  make  any  immediate  attempt  to  set 
herself  right.  She  attended  first  very  competently  to  all  of 
Paula's  wants  in  the  way  of  breakfast  and  saw  her  fairly 
launched  on  her  chilled  grapefruit.  Then  she  said,  "A 
man  is  coming  to  tune  the  piano  this  morning." 

It  was  more  than  a  statement  of  fact.  Indeed  I  despair 
of  conveying  to  you  all  the  implications  and  moral  reflections 
which  Miss  Wollaston  contrived  to  pack  into  that  simple 
sentence. 

The  drawing-room  piano  was  what  an  artillerist  would 
speak  of  as  one  of  the  sensitive  points  along  the  family  front. 
It  had  been  a  present  to  the  Wollaston  household  from  the 
eldest  of  John's  brothers,  the  unmarried  one  Miss  Wollaston 
had  kept  house  for  so  many  years  before  he  died ;  the  last 
present,  it  turned  out,  he  ever  made  to  anybody.  Partly  per- 
haps, because  it  was  a  sacred  object,  the  \Vollaston  children 
took  to  treating  it  rather  irreverently.  The  "Circassian 
grand"  was  one  of  its  nicknames  and  the  "Siamese  Elephant" 
another.  It  did  glare  in  the  otherwise  old-fashioned  Dear- 
born Avenue  drawing-room  and  its  case  did  express  a  com- 
plete recklessness  of  expense  rather  than  any  more  austere 
esthetic  impulse. 

Paula  ignored  it  in  rather  a  pointed  way ;  being  a  musi- 
cian she  might  have  been  expected  to  see  that  it  was  kept 
in  tune.  She  had  a  piano  of  her  own  up  in  the  big  room 
at  the  top  of  the  house  that  had  once  been  the  nursery  and 
over  this  instrument,  she  made,  Miss  Wollaston  felt,  a  silly 


THE  CIRCASSIAN  GRAND  13 

amount  of  fuss.  Supposedly  expert  tuners  were  constantly 
being  called  in  to  do  things  to  it  and  nothing  they  did  ever 
seemed  to  afford  Paula  any  satisfaction. 

The  aura  that  surrounded  Miss  Wollaston's  remark  in- 
cluded, then,  the  conviction  that  the  drawing-room  piano, 
being  a  sacred  memory,  couldn't  be  out  of  tune  in  the  first 
place ;  that  Paula,  in  the  second,  ought  to  have  attended  to 
it;  and  third  (this  is  rather  complex  but  I  guarantee  the 
accuracy  of  it)  the  fact  that  it  was  to  be  tuned  this  morning, 
really  made  it  a  perfectly  possible  instrument  for  Mr.  Novelli 
to  have  played  upon  last  night. 

John  missed  none  of  that.  He  hadn't  been  observing  his 
sister  during  half  a  century  for  nothing.  He  glanced  over  to 
see  how  much  of  it  his  wife  took  in;  but  the  fact,  in  this  in- 
stance, was  all  that  interested  Paula. 

"It  was  awfully  clever  of  you,"  she  said,  "to  get  hold  of 
a  tuner.  Who  is  he  ?  Where  did  you  find  him  ?" 

"1  found  him  in  the  park,"  said  Miss  Wollaston  brightly, 
responding  to  the  little  thrill  you  always  felt  when  Paula 
focused  her  attention  upon  you.  "He  was  sitting  on  a  bench 
when  I  drove  by  just  after  lunch.  I  don't  know  why  I 
noticed  him  but  I  did  and  when  I  came  back  hours  later, 
he  was  still  sitting  there  on  the  same  bench.  He  was  in 
uniform;  a  private,  I  think,  certainly  not  an  officer.  It 
struck  me  as  rather  sad,  his  sitting  there  like  that,  so  I 
stopped  the  car  and  spoke  to  him.  He  got  his  discharge 
just  the  other  day,  it  seemed.  I  asked  him  if  he  had  a  job 
and  he  said,  no,  he  didn't  believe  he  had.  Then  I  asked  him 
what  his  trade  was  and  he  said  he  was  a  piano  tuner.  So  I 
told  him  he  might  come  this  morning  and  tune  ours." 

It  was  Paula's  bewildered  stare  that  touched  off  John's 
peal  of  laughter.  Alone  with  his  sister  he  might  have  smiled 
to  himself  over  the  lengths  she  went  in  the  satisfaction  of 
her  passion  for  good  works.  But  Paula,  he  knew,  would 


14  MARY  WOLLASTON 

just  as  soon  have  invited  a  strange  bench- warming  dentist 
to  come  and  work  on  her  teeth  by  way  of  being  kind  to  him. 

Miss  Wollaston,  a  flush  of  annoyance  on  her  faded 
cheeks,  began  making  dignified  preparations  to  leave  the 
table  and  John  hastily  apologized.  "I  laughed,"  he  said, — 
disingenuously  because  it  wouldn't  do  to  implicate  Paula — 
"over  the  idea  that  perhaps  he  didn't  want  a  job  at  all  and 
made  up  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  the  unlikeliest  trade  he 
could  think  of.  And  how  surprised  he  must  have  been  when 
you  took  him  up." 

"He  did  not  seem  surprised,"  Miss  Wollaston  said.  "He 
thanked  me  very  nicely  and  said  he  would  come  this  morn- 
ing. At  ten,  if  that  would  be  convenient.  Of  course  if  you 
wish  to  put  it  off  .  .  ." 

"Not  at  all,"  said  John.  He  rose  when  she  did  and — 
this  was  an  extra  bit,  an  act  of  contrition  for  having  wounded 
her — went  with  her  to  the  door.  "It  was  a  good  idea,"  he 
said;  "an  excellent  way  of — of  killing  two  birds  with  one 
stone." 

Paula  was  smiling  over  this  when  he  came  back  to  her. 
"It  doesn't  matter,  does  it  ?"  he  asked. 

She  shook  her  head.  "It  isn't  that  it's  out  of  tune,  really ; 
it's  just — hopeless." 

It  was  strange  how  like  a  knife  thrust  that  word  of  hers 
— hopeless — went  through  him.  Perfectly  illogical,  of 
course ;  she  was  not  speaking  of  his  life  and  hers  but  of  that 
ridiculous  drawing-room  piano.  Somehow  the  mere  glow 
she  had  brought  into  the  room  with  her,  the  afterglow  of 
an  experience  he  had  no  share  in  producing,  had  become 
painful  to  him;  made  him  feel  old.  He  averted  his  eyes 
from  her  with  an  effort  and  stared  down  at  his  empty  plate. 

A  moment  later  she  came  around  the  table  and  seated 
herself,  facing  him,  upon  the  arm  of  his  chair;  clasped  his 


THE  CIRCASSIAN  GRAND  15 

neck  with  her  two  hands.  "You're  tired,"  she  said.  "How 
much  sleep  did  you  have  last  night  ?"  And  on  his  admitting 
that  he  hadn't  had  any,  she  exclaimed  against  his  working 
himself  to  death  like  that. 

No  memory,  though  he  made  a  conscious  effort  to  re- 
cover it,  of  his  audacious  success  during  the  small  hours 
of  that  morning  in  bringing  triumphantly  into  the  world 
the  small  new  life  that  Pollard  would  have  destroyed,  came 
back  to  fortify  him;  no  trace  of  his  own  afterglow  that  had 
so  fascinated  and  alarmed  his  sister.  "I  shall  sleep  fast  for 
an  hour  or  two  this  morning  and  make  it  up,"  he  told  Paula. 

"I  do  wish  you  might  have  been  there  last  night,"  she 
said  after  a  little  silence.  "I  don't  believe  I've  ever  sung 
so  well;— could  have,  at  least,  if  there  had  been  room 
enough  to  turn  around  in.  It  was  all  there;  it's  getting 
bigger  all  the  time.  Not  just  the  voice,  if  you  know  what 
I  mean,  darling,  but  what  I  could  do  with  it." 

"It  was  partly  Novelli,  I  suspect,"  he  said.  "Having  him 
for  an  accompanist,  I  mean.  He's  very  good  indeed,  isn't 
he?" 

"Oh,  yes,  he's  good,"  she  assented  absently.  "Awfully 
good.  And  he  is  a  nice  furry  little  enthusiastic  thing;  like 
a  faun,  rather;  exciting  to  play  with  of  course.  But  it 
wasn't  that.  It's  you,  really — being  in  love  with  you  the 
way  I  am.  I  suppose  that's  the  very  best  thing  that  could 
possibly  have  happened  to  me.  I'm  another  person  alto- 
gether from  that  girl  you  found  in  Vienna.  Just  where  she 
left  off,  I  begin." 

She  uttered  a  little  laugh  then  of  sheer  exuberance  and 
with  a  strong  embrace,  pressed  his  head  hard  against  her 
breast.  He  yielded  passively,  made  no  response  of  his  own 
beyond  a  deep-drawn  breath  or  two.  A  moment  later  when 
she  had  released  him  and  risen  to  her  feet,  he  rose  too. 


16  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"Would  Novell!  be  procurable?"  he  asked.  "Could  be 
be  engaged  regularly,  as  an  accompanist  for  you  and  so 
on?" 

She  looked  at  him  rather  oddly.  "Why,  I  don't  need 
him,"  she  said,  "as  long  as  I  am  just  playing.  Of  course,  if 
I  were  to  go  regularly  to  work,  somebody  like  him  would 
be  almost  necessary." 

There  was  a  tight  little  silence  for  a  few  seconds  after 
that,  he  once  more  evading  her  eyes.  "It  seems  to  me  you 
work  most  of  the  time  as  it  is,"  he  said.  Then  he  an- 
nounced his  intention  of  going  up-stairs  to  take  a  nap.  He 
wasn't  going  to  the  hospital  until  eleven. 

He  did  go  up  to  his  room  and  lay  down  upon  his  bed  and, 
eventually,  he  slept.  But  for  an  hour,  his  mind  raced  like 
an  idle  motor.  That  nonsense  of  Lucile's  about  Portia 
Stanton's  folly  in  marrying  a  young  musician  whose  big 
Italian  eyes  would  presently  begin  looking  soulfully  at 
some  one  else.  Had  they  already  looked  like  that  at  Paula  ? 
Jealousy  itself  wasn't  a  base  emotion.  Betraying  it  was  all 
that  mattered.  You  couldn't  help  feeling  it  for  any  one  you 
loved.  Paula,  bending  over  that  furry  faun-like  head,  read- 
ing off  the  same  score  with  him,  responding  to  the  same 
emotions  from  the  music.  .  .  .  Fantastic,  of  course. 
There  could  be  no  sane  doubt  as  to  who  it  was  that  Paula 
was  in  love  with.  That  embrace  of  hers,  just  now. 
Curious  how  it  terrified  him.  He  had  felt  like  a  mouse 
under  the  soft  paw  of  a  cat.  An  odd  symptom  of  fatigue. 

What  a  curious  thing  life  was.  How  widely  it  departed 
from  the  traditional  patterns.  Here  in  his  own  case,  that 
Fate  should  save  the  one  real  passion  of  his  life  for  the 
Indian  summer  of  it.  And  that  it  should  be  a  reciprocated 
passion.  The  wiseacres  were  smiling  at  him,  he  supposed : 
smiling  as  the  world  always  smiled  at  the  spectacle  of 
infatuate  age  mating  with  tolerant,  indifferently  acquies- 


THE  CIRCASSIAN  GRAND  17 

cent  youth.  Smiled  and  wondered  how  long  it  would  be 
before  youth  awoke  and  turned  to  its  own.  Well,  he  could 
afford  to  smile  at  the  wiseacres.  And  at  the  green  inex- 
perienced young,  as  well,  who  thought  that  love  was  ex- 
clusively their  affair — children  the  age  of  Mary  taking  their 
sentimental  thrills  so  seriously! 

Four  years  now  he  had  been  married  to  Paula  and  the 
thing  had  never  chilled, — n^ver  gone  stale.  How  different 
from  the  love  of  his  youth  that  had  led  to  his  former  mar- 
riage, was  this  burning  constant  flame.  Paula  was  utterly 
content  with  him.  She  had  given  up  her  career  for  him. 
— No.  She  hadn't  done  that.  He  had  not  asked  her  to  do 
that.  Had  not,  on  the  contrary,  her  marriage  really 
furthered  it?  Was  she  not  more  of  a  person  to-day  than 
the  discouraged  young  woman  he  had  found  singing  for 
pittances  the  leading  dramatic  soprano  roles  in  the  minor 
municipal  operas  of  Germany  and  Austria?  Wasn't  that 
what  she  had  said  this  morning — that  falling  in  love  with 
him  was  the  best  thing  that  could  possibly  have  happened 
to  her?  He  had  taken  it  wrong  when  she  said  it,  as  if  she 
were  regarding  him  just  as  an  instrument  that  served  her 
purpose,  a  purpose  that  lay  beyond  him;  outside  him. 

That  was  what  had  given  him  that  momentary  pang  of 
terror.  Fatigue,  of  course.  He  ought  to  go  to  sleep. 
Paula  was  refraining  from  her  morning  practise  just  so 
that  he  could.  Or  was  that  why?  Was  she  dreaming,  up 
in  the  music  room  where  she  was  never  to  be  disturbed, 
— of  last  night — of  Novelli?  Damnation  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  II 

SEA  DRIFT 

PAULA  went  up  to  the  music  room  after  breakfast,  stood 
at  one  of  its  open  windows  for  a  few  minutes  breath- 
ing in  the  air  of  an  unusually  mild  March  and  then  abruptly 
left  it ;  dressed  for  the  street  and  went  out  for  a  walk. 

She  was  quite  as  much  disturbed  over  the  scene  in  the 
dining-room  as  her  husband  had  been.  His  flash  of  jealousy 
over  the  little  Italian  pianist,  instantly  recognizable  through 
its  careful  disguise,  had  only  endeared  John  Wollaston  to 
her  further,  if  that  were  possible.  She  had  laughed  and 
hugged  his  worried  old  head  tight  against  her  breast. 

But  his  refusal  to  face  facts  about  her  musical  career 
was  another  thing  altogether.  Once  more  he  had,  patently 
and  rather  pitiably,  evaded  the  subject  of  her  going  seri- 
ously to  work.  Did  he  think  that  she  could  go  on  indefinitely 
parading  a  parlor  accomplishment  for  his  society  friends, — 
singing  nice  little  English  songs  for  Wallace  Hood  ?  It  was 
too  ridiculous !  That  hadn't  been  their  understanding  when 
she  married  him. 

What  she  had  been  sure  of  last  night  as  never  before, 
she  had  tried  down  there  in  the  dining-room  to  convey  to 
him;  that  her  powers  were  ripe,  were  crying  out  for  use. 
She  had  failed  simply  because  he  had  refused  to  see  what 
she  was  driving  at.  It  was  just  another  form  of  jealousy 
really,  she  supposed. 

She  was  not  an  introspective  person,  but  this,  clearly, 
was  something  that  wanted  thinking  over.  It  was  to  "think" 
that  she  went  out  for  the  walk.  Only,  being  Paula,  the 
rhythm  of  her  stride,  the  sparkle  of  the  spring  air,  the 
Stream  of  sharp  new-minted  sensations  incessantly  assail- 

18 


SEA  DRIFT  19 

ing  eye  and  ear,  soon  swamped  her  problem;  sunk  it  be- 
neath the  level  of  consciousness  altogether.  Long  before 
ten  o'clock  when  she  came  swinging  along  Dearborn  Ave- 
nue toward  her  husband's  house,  she  had  "walked  off"  her 
perplexities. 

A  block  from  the  house  she  found  herself  overtaking  a 
man  in  uniform  and  slackened  her  pace  a  little  in  order  not 
to  pass  him.  There  was  something  unmilitary  about  the 
look  of  him  that  mildly  amused  her.  It  was  not  that  he 
slouched  nor  shuffled  nor  that  he  was  ill-made,  though  he 
was  probably  one  of  those  unfortunates  whom  issue  uni- 
forms never  fit.  He  carried  a  little  black  leather  satchel, 
and  it  broke  over  Paula  that  here  perhaps  was  Lucile's 
piano  tuner.  She  half  formed  the  intention  to  stay  away 
another  hour  or  two  until  he  should  have  had  time  to  finish. 
But  he  interfered  with  that  plan  by  stopping  in  front  of  the 
house  and  looking  at  it  as  if  making  up  his  mind  whether 
to  go  in. 

It  was  an  odd  look  he  had,  but  distinctly  an  engaging 
one.  He  was  not  criticizing  the  architecture,  if  so  it  could 
be  called,  of  the  house-front.  Yet  there  was  a  sort  of 
comfortable  detachment  about  him  which  precluded  the 
belief  that  it  was  a  mere  paralyzing  shyness  that  held  him 
there. 

Paula  abandoned  her  intention  of  walking  by.  She 
stopped  instead  as  she  came  up  to  him  and  said,  "Are  you 
coming  in  here  ?  If  you  are,  I'll  let  you  in."  She  fished  an 
explanatory  latch-key  out  of  her  wrist-bag  as  she  went  up 
the  steps. 

"Why,"  he  said,  "I  believe  this  is  the  house  where  I'm 
expected  to  tune  a  piano." 

In  the  act  of  thrusting  home  her  key,  Paula  stopped 
short,  turned  irrepressibly  and  stared  at  him.  She  was  one 
of  that  very  small  number  of  American-born  singers  who 


20  MARY  WOLLASTON 

take  the  English  language  seriously  and  she  knew  good 
speech  when  she  heard  it.  It  was  one  of  the  qualities  which 
had  first  attracted  her  to  Doctor  John.  This  man's  speak- 
ing voice  would  have  arrested  her  attention  pleasantly  any- 
where. Coming  from  the  private  soldier  Lucile  had  told 
to  come  round  to  tune  the  piano,  it  really  startled  her. 
She  turned  back  to  the  door  and  opened  it. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "they're  expecting  you.  Come  in  and 
I'll  show  you  the  piano." 

She  might,  of  course,  merely  have  indicated  the  draw- 
ing-room door  to  him  with  a  nod  and  gone  up-stairs,  but 
she  was  determined  now  to  wait  and  hear  him  say  some- 
thing more.  So  she  led  the  way  into  the  drawing-room 
and  quite  superfluously  indicated  the  Circassian  grand  with 
a  gesture.  Then  she  looked  back  at  him  quickly  enough 
to  surprise  the  expression  that  flickered  across  his  face  at 
the  sight  of  it.  A  mere  cocking  of  one  eyebrow  it  was,  but 
amusingly  expressive.  So,  too,  was  the  way  he  walked  over 
toward  it,  with  an  air  of  cautious  determination,  of  readi- 
ness for  anything,  that  made  Paula  want  to  laugh.  He 
dropped  down  sidewise  on  the  bench,  turned  up  the  lid 
and  dug  his  fingers  into  the  keyboard. 

At  the  noise  he  evoked  from  that  pampered  instrument 
she  did  laugh  aloud.  It  was  not  a  piano  tuner's  arpeggio 
but  a  curiously  teasing  mixed  dissonance  she  couldn't  begin 
to  identify.  She  thought  she  heard  him  say,  "My  God!" 
but  couldn't  be  sure.  He  repeated  his  chord  pianissimo  and 
held  it  down,  reached  up  and  echoed  it  in  the  upper  half  of 
the  keyboard;  then  struck,  hard,  two  octaves  in  the  bass. 

"What  a  piano!"  he  said.  "What  a  damned  piano!" 
He  made  a  sort  of  effort  to  pull  himself  up ;  apologized 
(she  thought  that  was  what  he  meant  to  do)  for  the  damn. 
But  as  he  turned  back  to  the  piano  and  struck  another 
chord  or  two,  she  could  see  that  his  sense  of  outrage  was 
mounting  steadily  all  the  time. 


SEA  DRIFT  21 

"You  can't  tune  a  piano  like  this."  He  pushed  up  the 
cover  and  stared  gloomily  at  the  strings.  "A  mincing 
sickly  thing  like  this.  It's  all  wrong.  The  scale  is  all 
wrong.  The  man  who  designed  it  ought  to  be  hung.  But 
he  called  it  a  piano  and  sold  it  for  a  piano  and  I'm  expected 
to  come  in  and  tune  it.  Slick  and  smear  it  over  and  leave 
it  sounding  sicklier  and  tubbier  and  more  generally  disgust- 
ing than  ever.  You  might  as  well  take  a  painted  harlot  off 
the  streets" — he  glared  at  the  ornate  extravagance  of  the 
case — "and  expect  to  make  a  gentlewoman  of  her  with  one 
lesson  in  deportment.  I  won't  tune  it.  It's  better  left  as 
it  is.  In  its  shame." 

"Well,"  said  Paula,  letting  go  a  long  breath,  "you've 
said  it." 

Then  she  dropped  into  a  chair  and  began  to  laugh. 
Never  again,  she  felt  sure,  would  the  drawing-room  piano 
be  able  to  cause  her  a  moment's  irritation.  This  astonishing 
piano  tuner  of  Lucile's  had  converted  it,  with  his  new 
christening,  into  a  source  of  innocent  merriment.  "The 
painted  harlot"  covered  the  ground.  Clear  inspiration  was 
what  that  was.  The  way  he  went  on  glowering  at  it, 
digging  every  now  and  then  a  new  and  more  abominable 
chord  out  of  its  entrails  made  her  mirth  the  more  uncontrol- 
lable. 

"It  isn't  funny,  you  know,  a  thing  like  this,"  he  re- 
monstrated at  last.  "It's  serious." 

"It  would  be  serious,"  she  retorted  with  sudden  severity, 
"if  you  had  said  all  that  or  anything  in  the  least  like  that  to 
Miss  Wollaston.  Because  she  really  loves  it.  She  has 
adopted  it." 

"Was  she  the  lady  who  spoke  to  me  in  the  park?"  His 
evident  consternation  over  this  aspect  of  the  case  made 
Paula  smile  as  she  nodded  yes. 

"That  was  an  act  of  real  kindness,"  he  said  earnestly. 
"Not  mere  good  nature.  It  doesn't  grow  on  every  bush." 


22  MARY  WCLLASTON 

To  this  she  eagerly  agreed.  "She  is  kind ;  she's  a  dear." 
But  when  she  saw  him  looking  unhappily  at  the  piano  again, 
she  said  (for  she  hadn't  the  slightest  intention  of  abandon- 
ing him  now),  "There's  another  one,  quite  a  different  sort 
of  one,  in  the  music  room  up-stairs.  Would  you  like  to 
come  along  and  look  at  that  ?" 

He  followed  her  tractably  enough,  but  up  in  her  studio 
before  looking  at  the  piano,  he  asked  her  a  question  or  two. 
Had  he  the  name  right?  And  was  the  lady  related  to  Doc- 
tor Wollaston  ? 

"She's  his  sister,"  said  Paula,  adding,  "and  I  am  his 
wife.  Why,  do  you  know  him?" 

"I  talked  with  him  once.  He  came  out  to  the  factory 
to  see  my  father  and  I  happened  to  be  there.  Two  or  three 
years  ago,  that  was.  He  did  an  operation  on  my  sister 
that  saved  her  life.  He  is  a  great  man."  He  added,  "My 
name's  Anthony  March,  but  he  wouldn't  remember  me." 

He  sat  down  at  the  instrument,  went  over  the  keyboard 
from  bottom  to  top  and  back  again  with  a  series  of  curious 
modulations.  Then  opening  his  bag  and  beginning  to  get 
out  his  tools,  he  said,  "Before  I  went  into  the  army,  there 
was  a  man  named  Bernstein  in  these  parts,  who  used  to 
perpetrate  outrages  like  this  on  pianos." 

"Yes,"  said  Paula,  "he  tuned  this  one  two  weeks  ago." 

Without  so  much  as  a  by  your  leave,  Anthony  March 
went  to  work. 

It  was  Paula's  childlike  way  to  take  any  pleasurable 
event  simply  as  a  gift  from  heaven  without  any  further 
scrutiny  of  its  source;  with  no  labored  attempt  to  explain 
its  arrival  and  certainly  with  no  misgivings  as  to  whether 
or  not  she  was  entitled  to  it.  Anthony  March  was  such  a 
gift.  By  the  time  he  had  got  to  work  on  her  own  piano,  she 
knew  he  was  pure  gold  and  settled  down  joyously  to  make 
the  most  of  him. 


SEA  DRIFT  23 

It  was  not  until  she  attempted  to  give  an  account  to  the 
Wollastons  at  dinner  that  night,  of  the  day  they  had  spent 
together — for  they  had  made  a  day  of  it — that  she  realized 
there  was  anything  odd,  not  to  say  astonishing,  about  the 
episode.  How  in  the  first  place  did  it  happen  that  it  was 
Paula's  piano  he  tuned  instead  of  the  one  in  the  drawing- 
room?  This  was,  .of  course,  inexplicable  until  she  could 
get  John  by  himself  and  tell  him  about  it.  One  couldn't 
report  to  Lucile  his  phrase  about  the  painted  harlot.  She 
had  to  content  herself  with  stressing  the  fact  that  he  in- 
tended to  tune  the  drawing-room  piano  after  he  had  finished 
with  hers  and  then  somehow  he  hadn't  got  around  to  it. 

But  why  had  an  unaccredited  wanderer  whom  Lucile 
had  found  in  the  park  even  been  given  a  chance  at  the  piano 
up-stairs  ?  Well,  he  had  looked  to  Paula  like  an  artist  when 
she  had  let  him  in  the  door.  You  could  tell,  with  people 
like  that,  if  you  had  an  eye  for  such  matters.  And  then 
his  recognition  of  Bernstein's  nefarious  handiwork  had . 
clenched  her  conviction.  Certainly  she  had  been  right  about 
it;  he  had  absolutely  bewitched  that  piano  of  hers.  She 
didn't  believe  there  was  another  such  tuner  in  the  United 
States.  If  they  would  come  up-stairs  after  dinner,  she'd 
show  them.  They  had  always  thought  she  was  unneces- 
sarily fussy  about  it,  but  now  they  should  see  they  were  mis- 
taken. It  was  like  unveiling  a  statue.  The  poor  thing  had 
been  there  all  the  time,  covered  up  so  that  you  couldn't  hear 
it.  She  was  so  excited  about  it  she  could  hardly  leave  it 
alone. 

And  he  had  been  as  delighted  with  the  results  as  she 
herself.  After  he  had  played  it  a  while  for  her  (oh,  he 
didn't  play  well,  atrociously  badly  really,  but  that  didn't 
matter ;  it  only  made  it  all  the  more  exciting)  he  made  her 
play  for  him.  Paula  smiled  reminiscently  when  she  added 
that  he  had  sat  all  the  while  she  was  playing,  on  the  bare 


24  MARY  WOLLASTON 

floor  under  the  piano  where  he  could  feel  the  vibrations 
as  well  as  hear  them.  He  had  paid  her  an  odd  sort  of 
compliment  too,  when  he  came  crawling  out,  saying  that  he 
had  assumed  from  the  scores  on  the  piano  that  she  was  a 
singer  but  that  she  played  like  a  musician, — only  not  a 
pianist ! 

He  was  a  genius,  absolutely  a  genius  of  the  first  water, 
when  it  came  to  tuning  pianos.  Whether  his  talent  as  a 
composer  ran  to  any  such  lengths  as  that  she,  of  course, 
didn't  know.  If  what  he  had  played  for  her  had  been  his 
own,  any  of  it,  it  was  awfully  modern  and  interesting,  at 
least.  You  could  tell  that  even  though  it  kept  him  swear- 
ing at  himself  all  the  time  for  not  being  able  to  play  it.  And 
from  something  he  said  at  lunch  .  .  . 

"Lunch!"  Miss  Wollaston  gasped  (she  had  been  away 
from  home  all  day).  "Do  you  mean  you  had  lunch  with 
him?" 

"Why  not  ?"  Paula  wanted  to  know.  "Me  to  have  gone 
down-stairs  and  eaten  all  alone  and  had  a  tray  sent  up  for 
him?  That  would  have  been  so  silly,  I  never  even  thought 
of  it.  He's  a  real  person.  I  like  him  a  lot.  And  I  don't 
know  when  I've  had  such  a  nice  day." 

Here  was  where  Paula's  difficulties  began.  Because 
when  they  asked  her  who  he  was,  where  he  lived,  where 
he  came  from,  what  his  experiences  in  the  army  had  been, 
and  whether  he  had  been  to  France  or  not,  she  had  to  pro- 
fess herself  upon  all  these  topics  totally  uninformed.  His 
name  she  happened  to  know;  it  was  Anthony  March.  He 
told  her  that,  somehow,  right  at  the  beginning,  though  she 
couldn't  remember  how  the  fact  had  cropped  out. 

As  to  the  other  matters  her  husband  and  his  sister  were 
seeking  information  about  she  simply  hadn't  had  time  to 
get  around  to  things  like  that.  She  thought  he  might  have 
been  a  farmer  once  or  some  such  sort  of  person.  He  liked 


SEA  DRIFT  25 

the  country  anyway.  He  had  spent  a  lot  of  time,  he  told 
her,  tramping  about  in  Illinois  and  Iowa,  earning  his  way 
by  tuning  farmers'  pianos. 

He  hated  Puccini  and  spoke  rather  disrespectfully  of 
Wagner  as  a  spell-binder.  He  liked  Wolf-Ferrari  pretty 
well;  the  modern  he  was  really  crazy  about  was  Monte- 
mezzi.  But  he  had  made  her  sing  oceans  of  Gluck, — both 
the  Iphigenia  and  Euridice.  It  was  awfully  funny  too 
because  he  would  sing  the  other  parts  wherever  they  hap- 
pened to  lie,  tenor,  bass,  contralto,  anything,  in  the  most 
awful  voice  you  ever  heard,  though  his  speaking  voice  was 
lovely.  Let  John  just  wait  until  he  heard  it.  It  was  almost 
as  nice  as  his  own.  Oh,  he  was  coming  back  again  some 
time.  He  had  promised  to  bring  over  some  songs  of  his 
own  composing  for  her  to  try. 

It  was  at  this  point  or  thereabouts  that  John  precipitated 
a  crisis  by  asking  how  much  this  paragon  of  a  piano  tuner 
had  charged  her  for  his  professional  services.  Paula  stared 
at  him,  stricken. 

"Why,"  she  said,  "I  don't  believe  I  paid  him  anything. 
I  know  I  didn't.  I  never  thought  of  it  at  all.  Neither  did 
he,  for  that  matter  though,  I'm  sure  of  it." 

This  provoked  Lucile  into  an  outburst,  rare  with  her,  of 
outspoken  indignation.  The  man,  delinquent  as  he  had 
been  in  the  matter  of  the  drawing-room  piano,  became  once 
more  her  protege,  her  soldier  whom  she  had  found  in  the 
park  and  attempted  to  do  a  kindness  to.  Paula  had  kept 
him  fussing  over  her  piano  all  day  and  then  let  him  go 
without,  for  all  she  knew,  money  enough  to  buy  his  supper 
or  procure  a  lodging  for  the  night. 

John,  though  he  made  less  commotion  about  it,  took  his 
wife's  negligence  even  more  seriously  for  he  set  about  at- 
tempting to  repair  it.  "You're  quite  sure,"  he  asked  in  his 
crisp,  consulting-room  manner — a  manner  Paula  was 


26  MARY  WOLLASTON 

pily  unfamiliar  with — "You're  quite  sure  he  told  you  noth- 
ing about  himself  beyond  his  bare  name?  You've  got  that 
right,  haven't  you  ?  Anthony  March  ?" 

"Yes,"  said  Paula  uncertainly,  "I'm  absolutely  sure  of 
that." 

Had  he  any  insignia  on  his  uniform? — little  bronze 
numerals  on  his  collar — anything  like  that  that  she  could 
remember?  That  would  tell  them  what  organization  he 
belonged  to  and  might  give  them  a  clue. 

Here  Lucile  got  drawn  into  the  inquisition.  She  had 
seen  him  and  talked  to  him.  Had  she  noticed  anything  of 
the  sort?  But  Lucile  had  not.  She  had,  naturally,  de- 
ferred all  inquiries  until  he  came  to  tune  the  piano;  and 
had  she  been  called  as  she  felt  she  should  have  been  .  .  . 

But  John,  it  appeared,  was  not  interested  in  pursuing 
that  line.  He  turned  back  to  Paula.  "I  wish  you'd  begin 
at  the  beginning,  my  dear,  at  the  time  you  let  him  into  the 
house,  and  try  to  remember  as  nearly  as  you  can  everything 
that  you  said  to  him  and  that  he  said  to  you.  He  may  have 
said  something  casually  that  you  didn't  remark  at  the  time 
which  would  be  of  the  greatest  help  to  us  now." 

Paula  wasn't  very  hopeful  of  obtaining  any  result  in 
this  way,  but  she  dutifully  went  to  work  trying  to  think. 
She  was  perfectly  amiable  about  it  all.  Presently  her  hus- 
band prompted  her.  "How  did  he  happen  to  tell  you  what 
his  name  was  ?  Can  you  remember  that  ?" 

After  a  minute,  she  did.  "Why,"  she  cried,  lighting 
up,  "he  sa'id  he  knew  you  but  you  wouldn't  remember  him. 
He  said  you  did  an  operation  on  his  sister  once — that  saved 
her  life." 

"An  unmarried  sister?"  he  asked. 

"What  difference  .  .  .  Oh,  I  see,  because  if  she 
was  married  her  name  wouldn't  be  March.  No,  he  didn't 
say  anything  about  that.  He  did  say  something,  though, 


SEA  DRIFT  27 

about  a  factory.    You  went  out  to  the  factory  to  see  his 
father  and  he  was  there." 

John  Wollaston's  face  went  blank  for  a  minute  and  his 
eyelids  drooped  shut.  Then  a  quick  jerk  of  the  head  and 
a  sharp  expulsion  of  breath  announced  success.  "That's 
all  right,"  he  said.  "Thank  the  Lord,  I've  got  it  now." 

It  would  have  seemed  absurd  to  Paula,  had  she  been 
capable  of  regarding  anything  he  did  in  that  light,  that 
he  should  take  a  trivial  matter  like  this  so  seriously.  He 
couldn't  have  looked  more  relieved  over  the  successful 
finish  of  a  difficult  operation. 

"That  happens  to  be  a  case  I'll  never  forget,"  he  went 
on  to  explain.  "Professionally  speaking,  it  was  unique,  but 
it  had  points  of  human  interest  as  well.  The  girl  was  a 
patient  in  one  of  the  wards  at  the  Presbyterian.  I  didn't 
get  a  look  at  her  until  the  last  minute  when  it  was  des- 
perate. Her  father  was  opposed  to  the  operation — a  re- 
ligious scruple,  it  turned  out.  Didn't  want  God's  will  inter- 
fered with.  He  was  a  workman,  a  skilled  workman  in  a 
piano  factory.  There  was  no  time  to  lose  so  I  drove  out 
there  and  got  him;  converted  him  on  the  way  back  to  the 
hospital.  I  remember  the  son,  now  I  think  of  it;  by  his 
speech,  too.  I  remember  thinking  that  the  mother  must 
have  been  a  really  cultivated  woman.  Well,  it's  all  right. 
I've  got  the  address  in  the  files  at  the  office.  I'll  send  a 
letter  there  in  the  morning  and  enclose  a  check.  How 
much  ought  it  to  be  ?" 

Once  more  Paula  did  not  know.  Hadn't,  she  protested, 
an  idea;  and  when  John  asked  her  how  much  she  paid 
Bernstein,  she  didn't  know  that  either.  It  all  went  on  the 
bill. 

"Well,  that's  easy,"  said.  John.  "I've  got  last  month's 
bills  in  my  desk.  All  right,  I'll  look  into  it.  You  needn't 
bother  about  it  any  more." 


28  MARY  WOLLASTON 

An  approximation  to  a  sniff  from  Miss  Wollaston  con- 
veyed the  comment  that  Paula  hadn't  bothered  appreciably 
about  it  from  the  beginning,  but  neither  of  the  others  paid 
any  attention  to  that. 

As  it  fell  out,  John  might  have  spared  his  labors  be- 
cause at  eight  o'clock  or  thereabouts  the  next  morning  just 
as  he  was  sitting  down  to  breakfast,  Anthony  March  came 
back  to  repair  his  omission  of  the  day  before  and  tune  the 
drawing-room  piano. 

A  minor  domestic  detail  of  that  sort  would  normally 
have  fallen  within  Lucile's  province,  but  John  decisively 
took  it  away  from  her. 

"When  I  finish  breakfast,"  he  said,  "I'll  write  him  a 
check  and  take  it  in  to  him."  He  added,  "I'm  curious  to 
see  what  this  new  discovery  of  Paula's  looks  like." 

That  was  exactly  what  he  felt,  an  amused  comfortable 
curiosity.  Nothing  in  the  least  like  that  flash  of  jealousy 
he  had  felt  over  Novelli.  If  it  had  occurred  to  him  to  try  to 
explain  the  difference  to  himself  and  had  he  taken  the  trouble 
to  skim  off  the  superficial  explanation, — that  Portia  Stan- 
ton's  husband  belonged  in  Paula's  world  and  that  a  tramp 
genius  who  came  around  to  tune  pianos  did  not, — he  might 
have  got  down  to  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  char- 
acter Paula  had  sketched  for  him  last  night  was  a  grotesque 
and  not  therefore  to  be  taken  seriously.  You  could  not,  at 
least,  do  anything  but  smile  over  a  man  who  sat  on  the 
floor  under  Paula's  piano  while  she  played  and  came  crawl- 
ing out  to  express  surprise  that  a  singer  should  be  a  musi- 
cian as  well. 

So  the  look  of  the  man  he  found  in  the  drawing-room 
stopped  him  rather  short.  Anthony  March  had  taken  off 
the  ill-fitting  khaki  blouse  and  the  sleeves  of  his  olive-drab 
uniform  shirt  were  rolled  up  above  the  elbows.  He  was 


SEA  DRIFT  29 

sitting  side-wise  on  the  piano  bench,  his  left  hand  on  the 
keyboard,  his  right  making  imperceptible  changes  in  the 
tension  of  one  of  the  strings.  His  implement,  John's  quick 
eye  noticed,  was  not  the  long-handled  L  shaped  affair  he 
had  always  seen  tuners  use  but  a  T  shaped  thing  that  put 
the  tuner's  hand  exactly  above  the  pin. 

"It  must  take  an  immense  amount  of  strength,"  he  ob- 
served, "to  tune  a  piano  with  a  wrench  like  that." 

March  turned  and  with  a  pleasant  sort  of  smile  wished 
him  a  good  morning.  But  he  finished  ironing  the  wave  out 
of  a  faulty  unison  before  he  replied  to  John's  remark.  He 
arose  from  the  bench  as  he  spoke.  "It  does ;  but  it  is  more 
a  matter  of  knack  really.  A  great  tuner  named  Clark 
taught  me,  and  he  learned  it  from  Jonas  Chickering  him- 
self. Old  Jonas  wouldn't  allow  any  of  his  grand  pianos  to- 
be  tuned  with  an  L  head  wrench." 

"My  wife,"  said  John,  "recalled  you  to  me  last  night,  in 
the  effort  to  remedy  her  omission  to  pay  you  for  your 
services  yesterday.  I  remember  your  sister's  case  very 
distinctly.  I  hope  she  is  ... 

"She  is  quite  well,  thank  you,"  March  said.  Oddly 
enough  his  manner  stiffened  a  little. 

John  hastily  produced  his  check.  It  had  struck  him  as 
possible  that  March  might  suspect  him  of  hinting  that  one 
gratuitous  service  ought  to  offset  the  other. 

"I  hope  the  amount  is  satisfactory,"  he  said. 

March  glanced  at  the  check  and  smiled.  "It's  rather 
more  than  satisfactory;  I  should  call  it  handsome.  Thank 
you  very  much."  He  tucked  the  check  into  the  pocket  of 
his  shirt. 

"My  wife's  immensely  pleased  over  what  you  did  to 
her  piano.  I'm  sure  she  will  be  glad  to  do  all  she  can  in 
the  way  of  recommending  you  among  her  musical  friends." 


30  MARY  WOLLASTON 

March  looked  at  him  in  consternation.  "Oh,  she 
mustn't  do  that !"  he  cried.  "I  hope  she  won't — recommend 
me  to  any  one." 

John's  sudden  unwelcome  surmise  must  have  been  legi- 
ble in  his  face  because  March  then  said  earnestly  and  quite 
as  if  the  doctor  had  spoken  his  thought  aloud,  "Oh,  it  isn't 
that.  I  mean,  I  haven't  done  anything  disgraceful.  It's 
only  that  I  know  too  many  musicians  as  it  is — professional 
pianists  and  such.  If  they  find  out  I'm  back,  they'll  simply 
make  a  slave  of  me.  I  don't  need  to  earn  much  money  and 
I  like  to  live  my  own  way,  but  it's  hard  to  deny  people  what 
they  are  determined  to  get."  He  added  thoughtfully,  "I 
dare  say  you  understand  that,  sir." 

John  Wollaston  nodded.  He  understood  very  well  in- 
deed. He  checked  on  his  tongue  the  words,  "Only  I  have 
to  earn  a  lot  of  money."  "You  are  a  composer,  too,  my 
wife  tells  me." 

"Yes,"  March  said,  "but  that  isn't  the  point  exactly. 
Put  it  that  I  enjoy  traveling  light  and  that  I  don't  like 
harness.  Though  this  one," — he  glanced  down  at  his  uni- 
form,— "hasn't  been  so  bad."  He  turned  toward  the  piano 
with  the  evident  idea  of  going  back  to  work. 

"Well,"  John  said,  "I  must  be  off.  You've  a  good  philos- 
ophy of  life  if  you  can  make  it  work.  Not  many  men  can. 
Good-by.  We'll  meet  again  some  time,  I  hope." 

"I  hope  so  too,"  said  Anthony  March. 
John  went  out  and  closed  the  drawing-room  door  behind 
him.  Then  he  left  the  house  without  going  up-stairs  and 
saying  hello  to  Paula  and  sitting  down  on  the  edge  of  her 
bed,  as  he  had  meant  to  do,  and  telling  her  all  about  his  talk 
with  the  piano  tuner. 

It  really  was  late  and  he  must  be  getting  started.  Only 
why  had  he  closed  the  drawing-room  door  so  carefully 
behind  Tiim?  So  that  his  wife  shouldn't  be  disturbed  by  the 


SEA  DRIFT  31 

infernal  racket  those  fellows  always  made  tuning  pianos? 
Or  so  that  she  mightn't  even  know,  until  he  had  finished 
his  work  and  gone,  that  Anthony  March  had  come  back  at 
all?  And  not  knowing,  should  not  come  down  en  negligee 
and  ask  whether  he  had  brought  his  songs  for  her.  Had  he 
brought  them  ?  Certainly  John  had  given  him  a  good  enough 
chance  to  say  so.  And  if  he  had  brought  them  and  Paula 
did  not  come,  would  he  leave  them  for  her  with  Nat?  Or 
would  he  carry  them  away  in  his  little  black  satchel  ? 

All  the  way  out  to  the  hospital  John  kept  turning 
Anthony  March  over  in  his  mind  and  the  last  thing  to 
leave  it  was  what  had  been  the  first  impression  of  all.  The 
fine  strength  of  that  hand  and  wrist  which  tuned  grand 
pianos  with  a  T  wrench. 

He  hated  himself  for  having  shut  the  door. 

And  as  it  happened  this  act  did  not  prevent  Paula  from 
finding  March.  The  tyrant  who  looked  after  her  hair  had 
given  her  an  appointment  that  morning  at  ten.  So,  a  little 
before  that  hour  and  just  as  March  was  finishing  off  his 
job,  she  came  down,  dressed  for  the  street.  She  came  into 
the  drawing-room  and  with  good-humored  derision,  smiled 
at  him. 

"I  knew  you'd  come  and  do  it,"  she  told  him. 

"It  isn't  going  to  be  so  bad,"  he  answered.  "Moszkow- 
ski,  Chaminade, — quite  a  little  of  Chopin  for  that  matter, — 
will  go  pretty  well  on  it." 

"Did  you  bring  my  songs?"  she  asked. 

From  the  chair  that  he  had  thrown  his  blouse  upon,  he 
produced  a  flat  package  neatly  wrapped  in  brown  paper. 
And  as  she  went  over  to  the  window  with  it,  tearing  the 
wrappers  away  as  she  walked,  he  went  back  to  his  work  at 
the  piano. 

"Don't  do  that,"  she  said,  as  he  struck  a  chord  or  two. 
"I  can't  read  if  you  do."  But  almost  instantly  she  added 


32  MARY  WOLLASTON 

with  a  laugh,  "Oh,  all  right,  go  ahead.  I  can't  read  this 
anyway.  Why,  it's  frightful!"  She  came  swiftly  toward 
the  piano  and  stood  the  big  flat  quires  of  score  paper  on  the 
rack.  "Show  me  how  this  goes,"  she  commanded,  but  he 
pushed  back  a  little  with  a  gesture  almost  of  fright. 

"No,"  he  protested  sharply.  "I  can't.  I  can't  begin  to 
play  that  stuff." 

She  remained  standing  beside  his  shoulder,  looking  at 
the  score. 

"They're  strange  words,"  she  said,  and  began  reading 
them  to  herself,  half  aloud,  haltingly. 

"  'Lcnv  hangs  the  moon.    It  rose  late, 
It  is  lagging — O  I  think  it  is  heavy  with  love,  with 
love.' " 

"Walt  Whitman,"  he  told  her.  "They're  all  out  of  a 
poem  called  Sea-Drift." 

She  went  on  reading,  now  audibly,  now  with  a  mere 
silent  movement  of  the  lips,  half  puzzled,  half  entranced, 
and  catching — despite  her  protest  that  she  could  not  read 
the  music, — some  intimations  of  its  intense  strange  beauty. 

"'.  .  .  do  I  not  see  my  love  fluttering  out  among  the 
breakers?  .  .  .  Loud  I  call  to  you,  my  love  .  .  . 
Surely  you  must  know  zvho  is  here  .  .  .  O  rising  stars! 
Perhaps  the  one  I  want  so  much  will  ris>e  .  .  .  with 
some  of  you  .  .  .  O  trembling  throat!  Sound  clearer 
through  the  atmosphere  .  .  .'" 

With  a  shake  of  the  head,  like  one  trying  to  stop  the 
weaving  of  a  spell,  she  turned  the  pages  back  to  the  begin- 
ning. 

"This  means  Novell!,"  she  said.  "I'll  get  him.  I'll  get 
him  this  morning.  He's  the  best  accompanist  in  Chicago. 
We'll  go  to  work  on  them  and  when  we've  got  them  present- 


SEA  DRIFT  33 

able,  I'll  let  you  know  and  sing  them  to  you.  Where  do  you 
live?" 

He  got  up  for  a  paper  and  pencil  and  wrote  out  an 
address  and  a  telephone  number.  She  was  still  staring  at 
that  first  page  of  the  score  when  he  brought  it  back  to  her. 

"I've  never  heard  any  of  those  songs  myself,"  he  told 
her. 

At  that  she  looked  around  at  him,  looked  steadily  into 
his  face  for  a  moment  and  then  her  eyes  filled  with  tears. 
She  reached  out  both  hands  and  took  him  by  the  shoulders. 
"Well,  you're  going  to  hear  them  this  time,  my  dear,"  she 
said.  As  she  moved  away,  she  added  in  a  more  matter-of- 
fact  tone,  "Just  as  soon  as  we  can  work  them  up,  in  a  few 
days  perhaps.  I'll  let  you  know." 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  PEACE  BASIS 

THERE  were  four  in  their  party  but  it  was  only  with 
Alfred  Baldwin  that  Mary  Wollaston  danced.  The 
other  man — Black  his  name  was,  and  he  came  from  Iowa 
City  or  Dubuque  or  thereabouts — devoted  all  his  attention 
to  Baldwin's  wife.  He  was  very  rich,  very  much  married — • 
out  in  Iowa — and  whenever  he  made  his  annual  business 
trip  to  New  York,  he  liked  to  have  a  real  New  York  time. 
They  had  dined  together  at  the  Baldwins'  apartment  with  a 
vague  idea  of  going  afterward  to  see  a  play  of  Baldwin's 
then  drawing  toward  the  close  of  a  successful  season's  run. 
But  dinner  had  been  late  and  they  had  lingered  too  long  over 
it  to  make  this  excursion  worth  while.  It  had  amused  both 
Mary  and  Christabel  to  discover  Black's  secret  hope  of  being 
taken  back-stage  and  introduced  to  the  beautiful  young  star 
who  was  playing  in  the  piece  and  taking  her  out  to  supper 
with  them.  He  didn't  know  that  Baldwin  hated  her  with 
a  perfect  hatred  and  never  got  within  speaking  distance  of 
her  if  he  could  help  it. 

So,  by  way  of  making  up  to  the  western  visitor  for  his 
disappointment  they  taxied  up-town  about  ten  o'clock  to  the 
brightest,  loudest  and  most  fantastically  expensive  of  New 
York's  dancing  restaurants.  Once  there,  he  took  command 
of  the  party ;  confidently  addressed  the  head  waiter  by  his 
first  name  and  began  "opening  wine"  with  a  lavish  hand. 
He  was  flirting  in  what  he  conceived  to  be  quite  a  desperate 
and  depraved  manner  with  Christabel,  and  what  enhanced 
his  pleasure  in  this  entertainment  was  that  he  did  it  all  right 
under  the  nose  of  the  husband,  who  obviously  didn't  mind 
a  bit.  He  would  talk  eloquently  when  he  got  home,  with 

34 


THE  PEACE  BASIS  35 

carefully  selected  corroborative  details,  about  the  wickedness 
of  New  York. 

Mary  liked  the  Baldwins.  Christabel  was  on  the  ex- 
ecutive committee  of  their  Fund  and  one  of  the  best  and 
steadiest  and  most  sensible  supporters  it  had.  She  was  a 
real  person.  Baldwin,  himself,  whom  she  hadn't  known  so 
long  nor  so  well  and  had  regarded  from  afar  as  a  rather 
formidable  celebrity,  proved  on  better  acquaintance,  though 
witty  and  sophisticated,  to  be  as  comfortable  as  an  old  glove. 
Altogether  they  were  the  nearest  thing  to  friends  that  her 
long  sojourn  in  New  York  had  given  her.  She  had  some- 
times thought  rather  wildly  of  putting  them  to  the  test  and 
seeing  whether  they  were  real  friends  or  not. 

To-night,  though,  even  they  irritated  her.  She  wished 
Christabel  would  snub  that  appalling  bounder,  Black,  as  he 
deserved.  How  could  she  go  on  playing  up  to  him  like  that  f 
As  for  Baldwin,  she  wished  he  would  just  dance  with  her 
and  not  talk.  She  supposed  that  the  amount  of  alcohol 
they  had  consumed  since  seven  o'clock  had  something  to  do 
with  his  verging  upon  the  vein,  the  Broadway  sentimental 
vein,  that  he  had  got  started  on  and  couldn't  seem  to  let 
alone. 

It  wasn't  new  to  Mary.  Indeed  it  was  a  phenomenon 
familiarly  associated  in  her  mind  with  Forty-second  Street 
restaurants  and  late  hours  and  strong  drink,  particularly 
gin.  The  crocodile  tear  for  the  good  woman  who  stayed 
at  home ;  who  didn't  know ;  who  never,  please  God !  should 
know.  The  tribute  to  flower-like  innocence — the  paper 
flower-like  innocence  of  the  stage  ingenue! 

Baldy  wasn't  as  bad  as  that,  couldn't  ever  conceivably 
be  as  bad  as  that,  no  matter  how  much  he  had  had  to  drink. 
Perhaps,  if  she  had  not  been  hypersensitive  to-night, — in  an 
impossible  mood  for  any  sort  of  party  really — she  might 
have  failed  to  detect  the  familiar  strain  in  his  sensible,  rather 


36  MARY  WOLLASTON 

fatherly  talk.  As  it  was,  she  thought  she  did  detect  it  and 
it  made  her  want  to  scream — or  swear ! 

There  is  one  point  to  be  urged  in  Baldy's  defense  that 
Mary  never  learned  to  allow  for.  Gin  or  no  gin,  the  effect 
of  contrast  she  presented  to  her  surroundings  in  a  place  like 
this,  her  look  of  a  seraphic  visitor  gone  astray,  would  have 
given  any  one  the  impulse,  at  least,  to  rush  to  the  rescue. 
To  begin  with,  it  was  not  possible  to  credit  her  with  the 
twenty-five  years  she  truly  claimed ;  nineteen,  in  a  soft 
colored  evening  frock  like  the  one  she  had  on  to-night,  was 
about  what  one  would  have  guessed.  Then,  you  never  would 
have  believed,  short  of  discovering  the  fact  yourself,  how 
strong  she  was ;  her  slenderness  and  the  fine  articulation  of 
her  joints  made  her  look  fragile.  Her  coloring  helped  the 
illusion  along,  the  clear  unsophisticated  blue  of  her  eyes,  the 
pallor  of  her  hair  that  the  petals  of  a  tea-rose  could  have 
got  lost  in, — it  was,  literally,  just  about  the  tint  of  unbleached 
linen — and  the  pearly  translucence  of  her  skin.  If  you  got 
the  opportunity  to  look  close  enough  to  see  that  there  wasn't 
a  grain  of  powder  upon  it,  not  even  between  the  shoulder 
blades,  it  made  you  think  of  flower  petals  again.  What 
clenched  the  effect  was  her  healthy  capacity  for  complete 
relaxation  when  no  effort  was  required  of  her.  She  drooped 
a  little  and  people  thought  she  looked  tired.  She  never 
could  see  herself  like  that  and  never  made  due  allowance  for 
the  effect  she  produced,  invariably  upon  strangers  and  not 
infrequently  upon  an  old  friend. 

To-night,  she  lacked  the  name  to  label  her  mood  by,  re- 
jecting rather  fiercely  the  one  that  kept  offering  itself.  You 
couldn't  be  homesick  when  home  was  the  last  place  in  the 
world  you  wanted  to  go  back  to — the  place  you  were  des- 
perately marshaling  reasons  for  staying  away  from. 

It  was  the  non-appearance  of  her  brother,  Rush,  that 
had  brought  a  lot  of  dispersed  feelings  to  a  focus.  She 
had  heard  nothing  later  from  him  than  the  letter  she  re- 


THE  PEACE  BASIS  37 

ferred  to  when  she  last  wrote  to  her  father.  She  had 
expected  a  cable  and  it  hadn't  come.  She  had  this  morning 
gone  over  to  Hoboken  to  meet  the  transport  he  had  said  he 
expected  to  sail  on,  but  having  got  down  to  the  pier  a  little 
late,  after  the  debarkation  had  begun,  she  could  not  be  sure 
that  she  hadn't  missed  him.  So  she  had  gone  back  to  her 
tiny  flat  in  Waverly  Place  and  had  spent  the  rest  of  the  day 
there,  vainly  hoping  that  he  would  turn  up  or  at  least  that 
she  should  get  some  word  of  him.  And  sitting  around  like 
that  for  hours  and  hours  she  had,  which  was  a  silly  thing  to 
do,  let  her  thoughts  run  wild  over  things — a  thing — that 
there  was  simply  no  sense  in  thinking  about  at  all. 

It  was  an  odd  fact,  which  she  had  noted  long  before  to- 
day, that  anything  connected  with  home,  a  letter  from  her 
father  or  her  aunt,  news  of  the  doings  of  any  of  her  Chicago 
friends  (the  birth  of  Olive  Corbett's  second  baby,  for  ex- 
ample), any  vivid  projection  of  a  bit  of  the  pattern  of  the 
life  into  which  she  had  once  been  woven,  roused  that  night- 
mare memory.  Or  gave,  rather,  to  a  memory  which  nor- 
mally did  not  trouble  her  much,  the  quality  of  a  nightmare ; 
a  moment  of  paralyzed  incredulity  that  it  could  have  hap- 
pened to  her ;  a  pang  of  clear  horror  that  it  really  and  truly 
had  happened  to  her  very  self ;  to  this  Mary  Wollaston  who 
still  lived  in  the  very  place  where  it  had  happened. 

This  afternoon,  while  she  had  sat  awaiting  from  moment 
to  moment  the  appearance  of  her  brother,  or  at  least  the 
sound  of  his  voice  over  the  telephone,  the  pang  had  been 
prolonged  into  an  agony.  She  had  let  herself  drift  into  a 
fantastic  speculation  of  a  sort  that  was  perfectly  new.  What 
if  the  boy  who  had  shared  that  crazy  adventure  with  her, 
himself  an  officer  bound  overseas,  had  fallen  in  with  Rush, 
made  friends  with  him.  told  him  the  story! 

This  was  pure  melodrama,  she  knew.  There  was,  in 
any  external  sense,  nothing  to  be  feared.  The  thing  had 
happened  almost  a  year  ago.  It  had  had  no  consequences— 


38  MARY  WOLLASTON 

except  this  inexplicable  one  that  her  brother's  approach' 
brought  back  the  buried  memory  of  it.  Why  should  it  cling 
like  that?  Like  an  acid  that  wouldn't  wash  off!  She  was 
not,  as  far  as  her  mind  went,  ashamed  of  it.  Never  had 
been.  But,  waiving  all  the  extenuating  circumstances — 
which  had  really  surrounded  the  act — admitting  that  it  was 
a  sin  (this  thing  that  she  had  done  once  and  had,  later, 
learned  the  impossibility  of  ever  doing  again),  was  it  any 
worse  than  what  her  brother  had  probably  done  a  score  of 
times? 

What  was  this  brother  of  hers  going  to  be  like?  It 
wasn't  possible,  of  course,  that  she  would  find  him  the  boy 
he  had  been  five  years  ago,  before  he  went  to  France — 
though  from  some  of  his  letters  one  might  have  thought  he 
hadn't  changed  a  bit.  Wasn't  it  likely  that  he'd  turn  out  to 
be  some  one  she  could  cling  to  a  little ;  confide  her  perplexi- 
ties to — some  of  them?  Was  there  a  chance  that  ripened, 
disillusioned,  made  gentle  and  wise  by  the  alchemy  of  the 
furnace  he  had  come  through,  he  might  prove  to  be  the  one 
person  in  the  world  to  whom  she  could  confide  everything? 
That  would  make  an  end  to  her  nightmare,  she  felt  sure. 

The  question  whether  he  was  or  was  not  going  to  turn 
out  like  that  was  one  presently  to  be  answered.  Until  she 
knew  the  answer  she  didn't  want  to  think  at  all,  least  of  all 
about  those  things  which  Baldy's  talk  to-night  kept  rousing 
echoes  of. 

"Oh,  they  all  look  good  when  they're  far  away,"  she  said, 
picking  that  bit  of  comic  supplement  slang  deliberately  to 
annoy  him.  "I  don't  believe  our  grandfathers  and  grand- 
mothers were  always  such  models  of  decorum  as  they  tried, 
when  they  had  grown  old,  to  make  us  think.  And  the  simple 
primitive  joys  ...  I  believe  an  old-fashioned  husking 
bee,  if  they  had  plenty  of  hard  cider  to  go  with  it,  was  just 
as  bad  as  this — coarser  if  not  so  vulgar.  After  all,  most  of 


THE  PEACE  BASIS  39 

these  people  will  go  virtuously  home  to  bed  pretty  soon  and 
you'd  find  them  back  at  work  to-morrow  morning  not  any  the 
worse,  really,  for  this.  It  may  be  a  rather  poor  sort  of  home 
they  go  to,  but  how  do  you  know  that  the  vine-covered 
cottage  you  have  been  talking  about  was  any  better  ?" 

"Not  to  mention,"  he  added,  in  humorous  concurrence, 
"that  there  was  probably  typhoid  in  the  well  the  old  oaken 
bucket  hung  in.  It  seems  odd  to  be  convicted  of  sentimen- 
tality by  an  innocent  babe  like  you.  But  if  you  had  been 
looking  at  the  party  down  at  the  end  table  behind  you  that 
I've  had  under  my  eye  for  ten  minutes,  perhaps  you'd  feel 
more  as  I  do.  No !  don't  turn  around ;  they  have  been  look- 
ing at  us." 

"Moralizing  over  us,  perhaps,"  she  suggested.  "Think- 
ing how  wicked  we  probably  were." 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  happen  to  know  the  girls.  They  live 
down  in  our  part  of  town,  just  over  in  the  Village,  that  is. 
They  have  been  here  six  or  eight  years.  One  of  them  was 
quite  a  promising  young  illustrator  once.  And  they're  both 
well-bred— came  obviously  from  good  homes.  And  they've 
both  gone,  well— clean  over  the  edge." 

Somehow  his  innocent  euphemism  annoyed  her.  "You 
mean  they  are  prostitutes?"  she  asked. 

He  frowned  in  protest  at  her  employment  of  the  word 
but  assented  unequivocally.  He  was  used — as  who  is  not — 
to  hearing-  young  women  discuss  outspokenly  such  topics  but 
he  couldn't  forgive  it  from  one  who  looked  like  Mary  Wol- 
laston. 

"I  have  a  hunch,"  he  said,  "that  the  two  boys  who  are 
with  them  are  officers  out  of  uniform.  I  noticed  that  they 
looked  the  other  way  pretty  carefully  when  that  major  who 
is  sitting  at  the  next  table  to  ours  came  in." 

"Let's  dance  again,"  she  said.  "I  love  this  Hawaiian 
Moonlight  thing." 


40  MARY  WOLLASTON 

He  saw  her  take  the  opportunity  that  rising  from  the 
table  gave  her  for  a  good  square  look  at  the  party  he  had 
been  talking  about  and  some  change  in  her  manner  made 
him  say  with  quick  concern,  "What  is  it?" 

But  she  ignored  the  question  and  stepped  out  upon  the 
floor  with  him.  They  had  danced  half-way  round  the  room 
when  she  said  quietly,  "One  of  the  boys  at  that  table  is  my 
brother  Rush." 

Baldwin  said,  "He  has  seen  you,  I  think."  He  felt  her 
give  a  sort  of  gasp  before  she  replied  but  the  words  came 
steadily  enough. 

"Oh,  yes,  we  saw  each  other  at  the  same  time." 

He  said  nothing  more,  just  went  on  dancing  around  the 
room  with  her  in  silence,  taking  care,  without  appearing  to 
do  so,  to  cut  the  corner  where  Rush  was  sitting,  rather 
broadly.  After  two  or  three  rounds  of  the  floor,  she  flagged 
a  little  and  without  asking  any  questions,  he  led  her  back 
to  their  table.  Luckily,  Christabel  and  her  lowan  had 
disappeared. 

As  soon  as  she  was  seated  she  asked  him  for  a  pencil 
and  something  she  could  write  on — a  card  of  his,  the 
back  of  an  old  letter,  anything.  She  wrote,  "Won't  you  please 
come  and  ask  me  to  dance?"  and  she  slid  it  over  to  him. 
He  read  it  and  understood,  picked  up  a  busboy  with  his  eye 
and  despatched  him  with  the  folded  scrap  for  delivery  to 
Captain  Wollaston  at  the  end  table. 

Mary  meanwhile  had  cradled  her  chin  in  her  palms  and 
closed  her  eyes.  She  had  experienced  so  clear  a  premo- 
nition before  she  turned  round  to  look  at  the  party  at  the 
end  table  that  one  of  those  officers  out  of  uniform  would 
turn  out  to  be  Rush  that  the  verification  of  it  had  the 
quality  of  something  that  happens  in  a  dream.  She  felt  a 
sharp  incredulity  that  it  could  really  be  they,  staring  at  each 
other  across  that  restaurant.  More  than  that,  the  brother 


THE  PEACE  BASIS  41 

she  saw  was  not — in  that  first  glance — the  man  she  had 
been  trying  all  day  to  make  up  her  mind  he  would  be.  Not 
the  new  Rush  with  two  palms  to  his  Croix  de  Guerre  and  his 
American  D.  S.  C. ;  and  the  scars  in  his  soul  from  the 
experiences  those  decorations  must  represent ;  but  the  Rush 
she  had  said  good-by  to  in  the  autumn  of  1914  when  he 
set  out  to  be  a  freshman  at  Harvard,  the  kid  brother  she 
had  counciled  and  occasionally  admonished,  in  the  vicarious 
exercise  of  her  father's  authority.  And  in  his  panic-stricken 
gaze  at  her,  she  had  recognized  his  instinctive  acceptance 
of  that  position.  Exactly  so  would  he  have  looked  five 
interminable  years  ago  if  she  had  caught  him  in  mischief. 

Then,  like  the  undertow  of  a  big  wave,  the  reaction 
caught  her.  It  was  intolerable  that  he  should  look  at  her 
like  that.  He  who  had  earned  his  manhood  and  its  privileges 
in  the  long  death  grapple  with  the  grimest  of  realities. 
Certainly  she  was  not  the  one  to  cast  the  first  stone  at  him. 
She  must  contrive  somehow,  at  once,  to  make  that  clear  to 
him.  The  urgency  of  the  thing  lay  in  her  belief  that  the 
whole  of  their  future  relationship  depended  upon  the  remov- 
ing of  his  misapprehension  now — to-night. 

She  could  not  go  to  that  table  where  he  sat  without 
seeming  more  than  ever  the  school  mistress  in  pursuit  of  a 
truant,  but  perhaps  he  would  come  to  her  if  she  put  her 
request  right.  They  had  danced  together  quite  a  lot  in  the 
old  days.  She  danced  so  well  that  not  even  her  status  of 
elder  sister  had  prevented  his  enjoying  the  exercise  of 
their  combined  accomplishment. 

A  horrible  misgiving  had  attacked  her  when  she  had 
scribbled  the  note  and  closed  her  eyes,  that  the  cocktails 
and  the  champagne  she  herself  had  consumed  since  seven 
o'clock  might  have  clouded  her  judgment — if,  indeed,  they 
were  not  responsible  for  the  whole  nightmare.  Would  she 
be  equal  to  following  out  the  line  she  had  set  for  herself? 


42  MARY  WOLLASTON 

But  no  trace  of  that  misgiving  was  apparent  to  her  when 
Rush,  after  a  wait  of  only  two  or  three  minutes,  appeared  at 
her  table.  She  greeted  him  with  a  smile  and  a  Hello,  nodded 
a  fleeting  farewell  to  Baldwin  and  slipped  comfortably  into 
her  brother's  arms  out  on  the  floor.  They  danced  away  with- 
out a  word.  There  was  the  same  quite  beautiful  accord 
between  them  that  there  had  been  in  the  old  days,  and  the 
sense  of  this  steadied  her.  They  had  gone  all  the  way 
around  the  floor  before  she  spoke. 

"It  is  like  old  times,  isn't  it?"  she  said.  "And  it  does 
seem  good.  You  don't  mind,  do  you, — for  ten  minutes  ?" 

"Ten  minutes  ?"  he  echoed  dully. 

She  knew  then,  as  she  had  indeed  been  aware  from  the 
first,  that  he  was  drunk  and  that  only  by  the  most  painful 
effort,  could  he  command  his  scattered  wits  at  all.  It  made 
her  want  to  cry  that  he  should  be  trying  so  hard.  She  must 
not  cry.  That  would  be  the  final  outrage.  She  must  be 
very  simple  and  clear.  She  must — must  contrive  to  make 
him  understand. 

"Will  you  listen  to  me,  dear,  and  do  exactly  what  I  ask 
you  to?  I  want  you  to  go  back  to  your  people  and  forget 
that  you  have  seen  me  at  all." 

"I  am  going  to  take  you  home— out  of  this,"  he  said 
laboriously. 

"I'm  going  home  soon,  but  not  with  you.  I  want  you 
to  go  back  to — to  the  girl  you  brought  here.  No,  dear, 
listen.  This  is  the  only  reason  I  sent  for  you.  To  tell 
you  that  I  wasn't  going  to  try  to  scold  you.  I  don't  mind 
a  bit.  I  want  to  tell  you  that,  so  that  when  you  come  back 
to  me  to-morrow  or  next  day  or  whenever  your  party  is 
quite  over,  you  won't  feel  that  you  have  anything  to  try 
to  explain  or  apologize  for.  Now  take  me  back  to  my  place 
and  then  go  on  to  yours." 

"I  won't  take  you  back  to  him,"  he  said  doggedly.  "What 


THE  PEACE  BASIS  43 

do  you  think  I  am?  I'm  drunk,  but  not  enough  for  that. 
I  am  going  to  take  you  home." 

She  tried  to  laugh  but  in  spite  of  herself  it  was  more  like 
a  sob. 

"Rush,  dear,  don't  be  silly.  I  am  perfectly  all  right — or 
would  be  if  I  hadn't  drunk  quite  so  much  champagne.  They'll 
take  me  home.  His  wife's  here  with  him  and  they're  old 
friends  of  mine.  They  know  a  lot  of  our  friends  in  Chicago. 
Please,  Rush  .  .  ." 

"Dp  you  think  I'd  go  back  to  that "  he  managed  to 

pull  up  on  the  edge  of  an  ugly  word — "back  to  those  people, 
and  leave  you  here?  Is  it  your  wrap  on  that  chair?  We'll 
stop  and  get  it  and  then  we'll  go." 

She  could  have  wept  with  vexation  over  the  way  her 
scheme  had  gone  awry  but  there  was  clearly  nothing  else 
to  do.  She  retrieved  her  cloak,  simply  said  good  night  to 
Christabel  and  the  man  named  Black,  leaving  Baldy  to  ex- 
plain things  as  he  chose. 

Five  minutes  later  she  gave  a  taxi  driver  the  address  of 
her  flat  and  dropped  back  against  the  cushions  beside  her 
brother.  Neither  of  them  spoke  a  word  during  that  fifteen- 
minute  drive.  Mary  wept  quietly  most  of  the  way — it  didn't 
matter  there  in  the  dark.  The  thought  of  this  splendid  glor- 
ious brother  of  hers  painfully  endeavoring  to  drag  himself 
back  into  a  state  of  sobriety  from  his  first  wild  caper  after 
long  wearing  of  the  harness  of  discipline — an  escapade  she 
supposed  that  he  must  have  been  looking  forward  to  for 
days — dragging  himself  back  to  protect  her — oh,  it  was 
too  hopeless!  Should  she  ever  be  able  to  explain  to  him 
why  she  had  sent  for  him,  and  that  her  intentions  had  been 
the  opposite  of  those  of  the  moralizing  meddler  he  would 
take  her  for?  If  only  she  could  make  it  up  to  him  somehow. 
She  would  have  liked  to  reach  over  and  pull  him  down  into 
her  arms,  mother  him  and  tell  him  not  to  mind — there  was 


44  MARY  WOLLASTON 

something  so  intolerably  pathetic  about  his  effort  to  sit 
soberly  straight — but  she  resisted  this  impulse  savagely. 
The  alcohol  in  her  own  veins  was  responsible  for  this.  She 
could  not  quite  trust  herself  not  to  go  maudlin.  So  she 
froze  herself  tight  and  huddled  away  from  him  into  her  own 
corner. 

She  did  not  think  beyond  the  address  she  had  given  to 
the  chauffeur  until  they  pulled  up  at  her  door.  Then  she 
turned  to  Rush  and  asked,  "Where  shall  he  take  you?  Are 
you  staying  at  a  hotel  ?" 

"I  am  going  to  take  you  home/'  he  said  precisely. 

She  saw  she  did  not  dare  to  let  him  go.  There  was  no 
telling  what  serious  trouble  he  might  get  into,  in  his  illicit 
civilian  dress,  if  she  turned  him  adrift  now.  So  she  said, 
simply,  "Well,  here  we  are.  Come  in." 

She  opened  the  street  door  with  her  latch-key,  and 
punched  on  the  hall  lights.  She  dreaded  the  two  flights  of 
stairs,  but  with  the  help  of  the  banister  rail  he  negotiated 
them  successfully  enough.  And  then  he  was  safely  brought 
to  anchor  in  her  sitting-room.  It  was  plain  he  had  not  the 
vaguest  idea  where  he  was. 

"I'll  make  some  coffee,"  she  said.  "That  will — pull  us 
both  together.  And  it  won't  take  a  minute  because  it's  all 
ready  to  make  for  breakfast." 

She  was  not  gone,  indeed,  much  longer  than  that,  but 
when  she  came  back  from  her  kitchenette  he  had  dropped 
like  a  log  upon  her  divan,  submerged  beyond  all  soundings. 
So  she  tugged  him  around  into 'a  more  comfortable  position, 
managed  to  divest  him  of  his  dinner-jacket  and  his  waist- 
coat, unbuttoned  his  collar  and  shirt-band,  took  off  his  shoes, 
and  covered  him  up  with  an  eiderdown  quilt.  Then  she 
kissed  him — it  was  five  years  since  she  had  done  that — and 
went,  herself,  to  bed. 

At  ten  o'clock  the  next  morning  she  sat  behind  her  little 


THE  PEACE  BASIS  45 

breakfast  table — it  was  daintily  munitioned  with  a  glass 
coffee  machine,  a  grapefruit  and  a  plate  of  toast — waiting, 
over  The  Times,  for  Rush  to  wake  up.  She  looked  more 
seraphic  than  ever,  enveloped  in  a  white  turkish  toweling 
bathrobe  and  with  her  hair  in  a  braid.  Her  brother  lay 
on  the  divan  just  as  she  had  left  him  the  night  before. 
Presently  the  change  in  his  breathing  told  her  that  he  was 
struggling  up  out  of  the  depths  of  sleep.  She  looked  over 
at  him  and  saw  him  blinking  at  the  ceiling.  When  his  gaze 
started  round  her  way,  she  turned  her  attention  to  the  busy 
little  coffee  machine  which  opportunely  needed  it. 

It  was  a  minute  or  two  before  he  spoke.  "Is  that  really 
you,  Mary?" 

She  smiled  affectionately  at  him  and  said,  "Hello," 
adding  with  just  an  edge  of  good-humored  mischief,  "How 
do  you  feel?" 

He  turned  abruptly  away  from  her.  "I  feel  loathsome," 
he  said. 

"Poor  dear,  of  course  you  do.  I'll  tell  you  what  to  do. 
I've  got  a  nice  big  bathroom  in  there.  Go  in  and  take  a 
cold  one."  Then —  "You've  grown  inches,  Rush,  since  you 
went  away  but  I  believe  you  could  still  get  into  a  suit  of 
my  pajamas — plain  ones,  not  ruffly.  Anyhow,  I've  another 
big  bathrobe  like  this  that  you  could  roll  up  in.  You'll 
be  just  in  time  for  the  coffee.  You  won't  know  yourself 
by  then." 

"I  wish  I  didn't,"  he  said  morosely. 

There  wasn't  much  good  arguing  with  that  mood,  she 
knew,  so  she  waited  a  little. 

"Is  this  where  you  live?"  he  asked.  "You  brought  me 
here  last  night  ?" 

"You  brought  me,"  she  amended. 

He  frowned  over  that  but  didn't  take  it  in.  The  next 
moment  though  he  sat  up  suddenly  and  after  a  struggle 


46  MARY  WOLLASTON 

with  the  giddiness  this  movement  caused,  asked,  "Who  else 
is  here?  Where's  the  other  girl  that  lives  with  you ?" 

"She's  not  here  now,"  Mary  said.  "We  are  all  by  our- 
selves." 

He  rose  unsteadily  to  his  feet.  "I've  got  to  get  out  of 
here  quick.  If  anybody  came  in  .  .  ." 

"Rush,  dearest!"  she  entreated.  "Don't  be  silly.  Lie 
down  again —  Well,  then  take  that  easy  chair.  Nobody  will 
come  in."  Then  over  his  air  of  resolute  remorse  she  cried, 
on  the  edge  of  tears  herself,  "Oh,  please  don't  be  so  un- 
happy. Do  let's  settle  down  and  be  comfy  together.  I 
don't  have  to  go  to  the  office  to-day.  My  job's  just  about 
played  out.  But  nobody  ever  comes  here  to  see  me  in  the 
daytime.  And  it  wouldn't  matter  if  they  did." 

But  this  change  of  attitude  was  clearly  beyond  him. 
"Ill  have  to  ask  you  to  tell  me  what  happened  last  night. 
You  were  there  at  that  restaurant  with  friends  of  yours  I 
suppose.  I  must  have  disgraced  you  up  to  the  hilt  with 
them.  I  should  think  you'd  hate  the  sight  of  me." 

"You  didn't  disgrace  me  at  all,"  she  contradicted,  and 
now  the  tears  did  come  into  her  eyes.  "They  knew  I  was 
expecting  you  and  I  told  Mr.  Baldwin  who  you  were.  You 
came  up  in  the  nicest  way  and  asked  me  to  dance  and  when 
we  went  away  together  there  wasn't  a  thing — about  you—- 
that they  could  see.  I  was  on  the  point  of  tears  myself 
because  my  plan  had  gone  wrong.  But  that  would  have 
seemed  natural  enough  to  them." 

He  frowned  at  the  name  Baldwin,  as  if  he  were  trying 
to  recover  a  memory.  Now  he  felt  vaguely  in  his  trousers 
pocket  and  pulled  out  the  crumpled  visiting  card  that  had 
her  note  scribbled  on  the  back  of  it.  "You  haven't  told  me 
yet  what  happened,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  I  was  afraid  you  wouldn't  remember."  She  looked 
away  from  him  as  she  said  it  and  a  little  unwonted  color 
crept  into  her  cheeks. 


THE  PEACE  BASIS  47 

"Afraid  ?"  he  questioned. 

"I  wanted  you  to  understand,"  she  said,  "and  now 
I'll  have  to  tell  you  again.  It  was  because  I  was  trying  so 
hard  not  to  meddle  that  I  did.  I  sent  that  little  note  to 
you  just  to  get  a  chance  to  tell  you  not  to  mind  my  seeing 
you  there  with  those  others — not  to  let  it  spoil  your  party. 
I  couldn't  bear  to  have  you  come  to  me  to-day,  or  to-morrow 
or  whenever  it  was,  feeling — well,  ashamed  you  know,  and 
explanatory.  That's  what  I  tried  to  tell  you  last  night  but 
couldn't  make  you  understand.  So  I  did,  really,  just  exactly 
what  I  was  meaning  not  to.  Of  course,  I  loved  you  for 
coming  away  and  I  love  having  you  here  like  this,  all  to 
myself.  But  I  didn't  mean  to — to  spoil  things  for  you." 

He  stared  at  her  a  moment  in  blank  inapprehension ;  then 
a  deep  blush  came  burning  into  his  face.  "You  didn't 
understand,"  he  said  thickly.  "You  didn't  know  what  those 
girls  were." 

"Oh,  Rush!"  she  cried.  "Of  course  I  did.  I  knew 
exactly  what  they  were — better  than  you.  I  even  knew 
who  they  were.  They  live  not  very  far  from  here." 

He  paled  and  his  look  was  frightened.  "How  did  you 
know  that?"  he  demanded.  "How  could  you  know  a  thing 
like  that?" 

"They've  lived  here  in  the  Village  for  years,"  she  said, 
summarizing  Baldy  without  quoting  him  as  her  authority. 
"One  of  them  used  to  be  an  illustrator — or  something — 
before  she  went — over  the  edge.  They're  two  of  our 
celebrities.  One  can't  go  about,  unless  he's  stone  blind, 
without  picking  up  things  like  that." 

"You  did  know  what  she  was,  then,"  he  persisted,  dog- 
gedly pushing  through  something  it  was  almost  impossible 
for  him  to  say,  "and  yet,  knowing,  you  asked  me  to  leave 
you  alone  and  go  back  to  her.  You  wanted  me  to  do  that  ?" 

"I  didn't  want  you  to !"  she  cried.  "I  hated  it,  of  course. 
But  men — people — do  things  like  that,  and  I  could  see  how 


48  MARY  WOLLASTON 

— natural  it  was  that  you  wanted  to.  And  if  you  wanted 
to,  I  didn't  think  it  fair  that  it  should  be  spoiled  for  you 
just  because  we  happened  to  recognize  each  other.  I  didn't 
want  you  to  hate  me  for  having  spoiled  it.  That's  all." 

She  gave  him  the  minute  or  two  he  evidently  needed 
for  turning  this  over  in  his  mind.  Then  she  turned  her 
back  on  the  window  she  had  withdrawn  to  and  began  again. 

"I  used  to  be  just  a  big  sister  to  you,  of  course.  Ever  so 
superior,  I  guess,  and  a  good  bit  of  a  prig.  And  all  this 
time  over  there  in  France  with  nothing  but  my  letters  and 
that  silly  picture  of  me  in  the  khaki  frame,  I  suppose  you 
have  been  thinking  of  me,  well, — as  a  sort  of  nice  angel. 
I'm  not  either,  really.  I  don't  want  to  be  either. 

"I  want  to  be  somebody  you  feel  would  understand  any- 
thing; somebody  you  could  tell  anything  to.  So  that  it 
would  work  the  other  way  as  well.  Because  I've  got  to 
have  somebody  to  tell  things  to, — troubles,  and  worries. 
And  I've  been  hoping,  ever  since  your  letter  came,  that  it 
would  turn  out  to  be  you." 

"What  sort  of  troubles?"  He  shot  the  question  h» 
rather  tensely. 

There  was  a  breathless  moment  before  she  answered^ 
but  she  shook  it  off  with  a  laugh  and  her  manner  lightened, 
"There's  nothing  to  be  so  solemn  about  as  all  that.  We 
don't  want  to  wallow.  We'll  have  some  breakfast— only 
you  go  first  and  tub." 

He  was  too  young  and  healthy  and  clean-blooded  to  re- 
sist the  effect  upon  his  spirits  which  the  cold  water  and  the 
fresh  white  bathrobe  and  the  hot  strong  coffee  with  real 
cream  in  it  produced.  And  the  gloomy,  remorseful  feeling, 
which  he  felt  it  his  moral  duty  to  maintain  intact,  simply 
leaked  away.  She  noted  the  difference  in  him  and  half-way 
through  their  breakfast  she  left  her  chair  and  came  round 
to  him. 


THE  PEACE  BASIS  49 

"Would  you  very  much  mind  being  kissed  now?"  she 
asked. 

His  answer,  with  a  laugh,  was  to  pull  her  down  upon  his 
knee  and  hug  her  up  tight  in  his  arms.  They  looked  rather 
absurdly  alike  in  those  two  white  bathrobes,  though  this 
was  an  appearance  neither  of  them  was  capable  of  observ- 
ing. She  disengaged  herself  presently  from  his  embrace 
and  went  to  find  him  some  cigarettes,  refraining  from  tak- 
ing one  herself  from  a  feeling  that  he  would  probably  like 
it  better  just  then  if  she  did  not. 

Back  in  her  own  place  over  her  coffee  and  toast,  she  had 
no  difficulty  in  launching  him  upon  the  tale  of  his  own 
recent  experiences.  What  the  French  were  like  now  the 
war  was  over;  and  the  Boche  he  had  been  living  among  in 
the  Coblenz  area ; — the  routine  of  his  army  life,  the  friends 
he  made  over  there,  and  so  on.  Altogether  she  built  him 
up  immensely  in  his  own  esteem.  It  was  plain  he  liked 
having  her  for  a  younger  sister  instead  of  for  an  older  one, 
listening  so  contentedly  to  his  tales,  ministering  to  his  mo- 
mentary wants,  visibly  wondering  at  and  adoring  him. 

But  she  broke  the  spell  when  she  asked  him  what  he 
meant  to  do  now. 

He  turned  restlessly  in  his  chair.  "I  don't  know,"  he 
said.  "I  don't  know  what  the  deuce  there  is  I  can  do. 
Certainly  father's  idea  of  my  going  back  to  college  and  then 
to  medical  school  afterward,  is  just  plain,  rank  nonsense. 
I'd  be  a  doddering  old  man  before  I  got  through — thirty 
years  old.  I  should  think  that  even  he  would  see  that.  It 
will  have  to  be  business,  I  suppose,  but  if  any  kind  friend 
comes  around  and  suggests  that  I  begin  at  the  bottom  some- 
where— Mr.  Whitney,  for  instance,  offering  me  a  job  at 
ten  dollars  a  week  in  his  bank — I'll  kill  him.  I  can't  do 
that.  I  won't.  At  the  end  of  about  ten  days,  I'd  run  amuck. 
[What  I'd  really  like,"  he  concluded,  "for  about  a  year  would 


50  MARY  WOLLASTON 

be  just  this."  His  gesture  indicated  the  bathrobe,  the  easy 
chair  and  the  dainty  breakfast  table.  "This,  all  the  morn- 
ing and  a  ball-game  in  the  afternoon.  Lord,  it  will  be  good 
to  see  some  real  baseball  again.  We'll  go  to  a  lot  of  games 
this  summer.  What  are  the  Sox  going  to  be  like  this  year  ?" 

She  discussed  the  topic  expertly  with  him  and  with  a 
perfectly  genuine  interest,  at  some  length.  "Oh,  it  would  be 
fun,"  she  finished  with  a  little  sigh,  "only  I  shan't  be  there, 
you  know.  At  least  I  don't  think  I  shall."  Then  before  he 
could  ask  her  why  not,  she  added  in  sharper  focus,  "I  can't 
go  home,  Rush." 

"Can't!"  he  exclaimed.    "What  do  you  mean  by  that?" 

"Oh,  nothing  to  make  a  fuss  about,"  she  said  with  a 
frown  of  irritation.  "I  wish  you  weren't  so  jumpy  this 
morning,— or  perhaps,  it's  I  that  am.  All  I  meant  was  that 
home  isn't  a  comfortable  place  for  me  and  I  won't  go  back 
there  if  I  can  help  it — only  I  am  afraid  I  can't.  That's  the 
trouble  I  wanted  to  talk  to  you  about." 

"I  thought  you  liked  the  new  stepmother,"  he  said. 
"Hasn't  she  turned  out  well? — What  am  I  supposed  to  call 
her,  anyhow  ?  I  wanted  to  find  out  about  that  before  I  was 
right  up  against  it." 

"Call  her?"  Mary  was  a  little  taken  back.  "Why,  any- 
thing you  like,  I  should  think.  I've  always  called  her 
Paula. — You  weren't  thinking  of  calling  her  mother,  were 
you?" 

"Well,"  he  protested,  "how  should  I  know?  After  all, 
she  is  father's  wife.  And  she  must  be  fairly  old." 

"But,  Rush,  you've  seen  her !" 

"Only  that  once,  at  the  wedding.  She  was  made  up  to 
look  young  then,  of  course.  Painted  and  dyed  and  so  on, 
I  suppose.  I  felt  so  embarrassed  and  silly  over  the  whole 
thing — being  just  a  kid — that  I  hardly  looked  at  her.  And 
that  was  a  long  while  ago." 


THE  PEACE  BASIS  51 

Mary  laughed  at  that,  though  she  knew  it  would  annoy 
him.  "She  never  paints  nor  dyes  nor  anything,  Ruddy. 
She  doesn't  have  to.  She's  such  a  perfectly  raving  beauty 
without  it.  And  she's  more  beautiful  now  than  she  was 
then.  She  really  is  young,  you  see.  Hardly  enough  older 
than  we  are  to  matter,  now  that  we're  grown  up." 

She  saw  Rush  digesting  this  idea  of  a  beautiful  young 
stepmother  whom  he  was  to  be  privileged  to  call — straight 
off — by  her  first  name,  with  a  certain  satisfaction,  so  she 
waited — rather  conscious  that  she  was  being  patient — for 
him  to  come  back  from  the  digression  of  his  own  accord. 
Presently  he  did. 

"What  does  she  do  that  you  don't  like  ?" 

"She  does  nothing  that  isn't  perfectly  nice,  and  good- 
tempered,  and — respectable,"  Mary  assured  him,  and  added 
on  a  warmer  note,  "Oh,  and  she's  really  amiable  and  lovely. 
I  was  being  a  cat.  But  I  am  truly  fond  of  her — when  I 
have  her  to  myself.  It's  when  she's  with  father  .  .  ." 

She  broke  off  there,  seeing  that  she  could  not  make  that 
clear  to  him  (how  could  she  since  she  would  not  state  it  in 
plain  terms  to  herself?)  and  hurried  on,  "It's  really  father 
whom  I  don't  get  on  with,  any  more.  He  worries  about  me 
and  feels  sorry  for  me  and  wants  me  to  come  home.  But 
I'm  nothing  to  him  when  I  do  come — but  an  embarrassment. 
— No,  it  isn't  rot.  He  knows  it  himself  and  feels  horrid 
about  it  and  raises  my  allowance  when  I  go  away,  though 
it  was  foolishly  big  already ;  and  then,  as  soon  as  I'm  back 
here  he  begins  worrying  again,  and  urging  me  to  come 
home.  He  didn't  insist  as  long  as  I  was  doing  war  work, 
but  now  that  that's  played  out,  I  suppose  he  will. 

"Oh,  I  know  well  enough  what  I  ought  to  do.  I  ought 
to  answer  some  advertisement  for  a  typist — I  can  do  that, 
but  not  stenography — and  take  a  regular  job.  The  sort 
you  said  you'd  shoot  Mr.  Whitney  for  offering  you.  And 


52  MARY  WOLLASTON 

then  I  ought  to  take  a  hall  bedroom  somewhere  in  the  cross- 
town  twenties  and  live  on  what  I  earned.  That's  the  only 
thing  I  can  see,  and,  Rush,  I  simply  haven't  the  courage 
to  do  it.  It  seems  as  if  I  couldn't  do  it." 

His  lively  horror  at  the  bare  suggestion  of  such  a  thing 
drew  her  into  a  half-hearted  defense  of  the  project.  Num- 
bers of  the  girls  she  knew  down  here  who  had  been  doing 
war  work  were  going  enthusiastically  into  things  like  that 
— or  at  least  were  announcing  an  invincible  determination 
to  do  so.  Only  they  were  cleverer  than  she  at  that  sort 
of  thing  and  could  hope  for  better  jobs.  They  were  in  luck. 
They  liked  it — looked  forward  to  a  life  of  it  as  one  full  of 
engaging  possibilities.  But  to  Mary  it  was  nothing,  she 
hardly  pretended,  but  a  forlorn  last  shift.  If  one  couldn't 
draw  nor  write  nor  act  nor  develop  some  clever  musical 
stunt,  what  else  was  there  for  a  girl  to  do  ? 

"Well,  of  course,"  said  Rush,  in  a  very  mature  philosoph- 
ical way  and  lighting  a  cigarette  pretty  deliberately  be- 
tween the  words, — "of  course,  what  most  girls  do,  is — 
marry  somebody."  Then  he  stole  a  look  around  at  his  sister 
to  see  how  she  had  taken  it. 

There  was  a  queer  look  that  almost  frightened  him  in 
her  blue  eyes.  Her  lips,  which  were  trembling,  seemed  to 
be  trying  to  smile. 

"That's  father's  idea,"  she  said  raggedly.  "He's  as 
anxious  now  that  I  should  marry  somebody — anybody,  as 
he  was  that  I  shouldn't  five  years  ago — before  he  found 
Paula.  You  see  I  am  so  terribly — left  on  his  hands." 

There  was,  no  doubt,  something  comical  about  the  look 
of  utter  consternation  she  saw  on  her  brother's  face,  but  she 
should  not  have  tried  to  laugh  at  him  for  a  sob  caught  the 
laugh  in  the  middle  and  swept  away  the  last  of  her  self- 
control.  She  flung  herself  down  upon  the  divan  and  buried 
her  face  in  one  of  the  pillows.  He  had  seen  men  cry  like 


THE  PEACE  BASIS  53 

that  but,  oddly  enough,  never  a  woman.  What  he  did 
though  was  perhaps  as  much  to  the  point  as  anything  he 
could  have  done.  He  sat  down  beside  her  and  gathered 
her  up  tight  in  his  arms  and  held  her  there  without  a  word 
until  the  tempest  had  blown  itself  out.  When  the  sobs  had 
died  away  to  nothing  more  than  a  tremulous  catch  in  each 
indrawn  breath,  he  let  her  go  back  among  the  pillows  and 
turn  so  that  she  could  look  up  at  him.  By  that  time  the 
sweat  had  beaded  out  upon  his  forehead,  and  his  hands, 
which  had  dropped  down  upon  her  shoulders,  were  trem- 
bling. 

"Well,"  she  asked  unsteadily.  "What  do  you  think  of 
me  now?" 

He  wanted  to  bend  down  and  kiss  her  but  wisely  he 
forbore.  "It's  easy  to  see  what's  the  matter,"  he  said. 
"This  war  business  you  have  been  doing  has  been  too  much 
for  you.  You're  simply  all  in."  Then  happily  he  added, 
"I'd  call  you  a  case  of  shell-shock." 

She  rewarded  that  with  a  washed-out  smile.  "What's 
the  treatment  going  to  be?"  she  asked. 

"Why,"  he  said,  "as  soon  as  I'm  done  tucking  you  up 
properly  in  this  eiderdown  quilt,  I'm  going  out  to  your  ice- 
box and  try  to  find  the  makings  of  an  egg-nog.  Inci- 
dentally, I  shall  scramble  up  all  the  rest  of  the  eggs  I  find 
and  eat  them  myself.  And  then  I'll  find  something  dull  to 
read  to  you  until  you  go  to  sleep.  When  it's  dark  enough 
so  that  my  evening  clothes  won't  attract  too  much  atten- 
tion, I'll  go  back  and  get  into  uniform;  then  I'll  buy  two 
tickets  for  Chicago  on  the  fast  train  to-morrow,  and  two 
tickets  for  a  show  to-night;  and  then  I'll  come  back  and 
take  you  out  to  dinner.  Any  criticisms  on  that  program  ?" 

"Not  just  for  this  minute,"  she  said  contentedly.  "I 
don't  know  whether  I'm  going  to  Chicago  with  you,  to- 
morrow, or  not." 


54  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"That's  all  right,"  he  said.  "I  know  all  about  that."  He 
added,  "I  hope  the  other  girl  won't  mind — the  one  who 
lives  here  with  you.  What  was  her  name  ?" 

"Ethel  Holland?  Oh,  she  went  over  to  France  with  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  just  about  a  year  ago.  I've  tried  to  find  some- 
body to  take  her  place,  but  there  didn't  seem  to  be  any  one 
I  liked  well  enough.  So  I've  been  living  alone." 

She  saw  his  face  stiffen  at  that  but  his  only  comment 
was  that  that  simplified  matters. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  PICTURE  PUZZLE 

THERE  was  a  good  quarter  of  an  hour  beginning  with 
the  tear-blurred  moment  when  Mary  caught  sight  of  her 
father  looking  for  her  and  Rush  down  the  railway  station 
platform,  during  which  the  whole  fabric  of  misgivings  about 
her  home-coming  dissolved  as  dreams  do  when  one  wakes. 
It  had  not  been  a  dream  she  knew,  nor  the  mere  concoc- 
tion of  her  morbid  fancy.  He  had  not  looked  at  her  like 
this  nor  kissed  her  like  this — not  once  since  that  fatal 
journey  to  Vienna  five  years  ago.  Had  something  happened 
between  him  and  Paula  that  made  the  difference  ?  Or  was 
it  her  brother's  presence,  that,  serving  somehow  to  take 
off  the  edge,  worked  a  mysterious  catalysis  ? 

When  John,  after  standing  off  and  gazing  wordless  for 
a  moment  at  this  new  son  of  his,  this  man  he  had  never 
seen,  in  his  captain's  uniform  with  bits  of  ribbon  on  the 
breast  of  it, — tried  to  say  how  proud  he  was  and  choked 
instead,  it  was  for  Mary  that  he  reached  out  an  unconscious, 
embracing  arm,  the  emotion  which  would  not  go  into  words 
finding  an  outlet  for  itself  that  way. 

When  they  got  out  to  the  motor  and  old  Pete,  once 
coachman,  now  chauffeur,  his  eyes  gleaming  over  the  way 
Rush  had  all  but  hugged  him,  said  to  her,  "You  home  to 
stay,  too,  Miss  Mary  ?"  her  father's  hand  which  clasped  her 
arm  revealed  the  thrilling  interest  with  which  he  awaited 
her  answer  to  that  question.  The  importunity  of  the  red- 
cap with  the  luggage  relieved  her  of  the  necessity  for 
answering  but  the  answer  in  her  heart  just  then  was  "Yes." 

It  was  with  a  wry  self -scornful  smile  that  she  recalled, 
later  that  day,  the  emotions  of  the  ride  home.  If  at  any 

55 


56 

time  before  they  got  to  the  house,  her  father  had  repeated 
the  old  servant's  question,  "Are  you  home  to  stay,  Mary  ?" 
she  would,  she  knew,  have  kissed  the  hand  that  she  held 
clasped  in  hers,  wept  blissfully  over  it  and  told  him  she 
wanted  never  to  go  away  again.  She  hadn't  minded  his  not 
asking  because  she  thought  she  knew  quite  surely  why  he 
had  not.  He  was  afraid  to  risk  his  momentary  happiness 
upon  her  answer.  And  why  had  she  not  volunteered  the 
assurance  he  wanted  so  eagerly  and  dared  not  ask  for?  The 
beastly  answer  to  that  question  was  that  she  had  enjoyed 
the  thrill  of  his  uncertainty — a  miserable  sort  of  feline 
coquetry. 

Well,  it  had  been  short-lived,  that  little  triumph  of  hers. 
It  had  stopped  against  a  blank  wall  just  when  the  car 
stopped  under  the  porte  cochfae  of  the  Dearborn  Avenue 
house.  John's  arm  which  had  been  around  her  was  with- 
drawn and  he  looked  with  just  a  touch  of  ostentation  at  his 
watch.  She  knew  before  he  spoke  that  when  he  did,  his 
tone  would  ring  flat.  The  old  spell  was  broken.  He  was 
once  more  under  the  dominion  of  the  newer,  stronger  one. 

"I'm  terribly  late,"  he  said.  "I  must  drive  straight  along 
to  the  hospital.  I'll  see  you  to-night.  We're  having  a  few 
old  friends  in  to  dinner.  Run  along  now.  Your  Aunt 
Lucile  will  be  waiting  for  you." 

His  omission  to  mention  Paula  had  been  fairly  palpable. 
Her  reply,  "All  right,  dad,  till  to-night,  then.  Au  'volr' " 
had  been,  she  knew,  as  brittle  and  sharp-edged  as  a  bit  of 
broken  glass.  It  had  cut  him ; — she  had  meant  it  to. 

Well  it  served  her  right.  Paula  deserved  to  own  the 
stronger  spell.  Paula's  emotional  channels  were  open  and 
deep.  No  choking  snags  and  sandbars,  no  perverse  eddies 
in  them.  Look  at  her  with  Rush  to-day!  There  was  a 
situation  that  fairly  bristled  with  opportunities  for  blunder- 
ing. She  might,  with  this  grown-up  son  of  her  hus- 


THE  PICTURE  PUZZLE  57 

band's  whom  she  had  hardly  seen,  have  shown  herself  shy, 
embarrassed,  at  a  loss  how  to  take  him.  She  might  have 
tried  to  be  archly  maternal  with  him  or  elder-sisterly.  But 
she  played  up  none  of  these  sentimental  possibilities,  seemed, 
indeed,  serenely  unaware  of  them.  She  treated  him  just 
as  she  had  always  treated  Mary — as  a  contemporary.  From 
the  beginning  she  had  no  trouble  making  him  talk.  For  one 
thing  her  acquaintance  with  France  and  Germany  was  inti- 
mate enough  to  enable  her  to  ask  him  questions  which  he 
found  it  pleasantly  stimulating  to  try  to  answer.  As  she 
felt  her  way  to  firmer  ground  with  him,  she  allowed  what 
was  evidently  a  perfectly  spontaneous  affection  to  irradiate 
the  look  she  turned  upon  him  and  to  warm  her  lovely  voice. 

So  she  must  have  begun — as  simply  and  irresistibly  as 
that — in  Vienna! 

Mary  tried  hard  to  think  of  it  as  a  highly  skilful  per- 
formance, but  this  was  an  attitude  she  could  not  maintain. 
It  was  not  a  performance  at  all ;  it  was — just  Paula,  who, 
having  taken  her  father  away  from  her  was  now,  inevitably, 
going  to  take  her  brother  too.  Not  because  she  meant  to — 
quite  unconscious  that  she  was  doing  any  harm  ("and  of 
course  she  isn't,  except  to  a  cat  like  me") — that  was  the 
maddening,  and  at  the  same  time,  endearing  thing  about  her. 

For  there  was  a  broad  impartiality  about  her  spell  that 
tugged  at  Mary  even  while  she  forlornly  watched  Rush 
yielding  to  it.  And  the  way  it  affected  Aunt  Lucile  was 
simply  funny.  She  melted,  visibly,  like  a  fragment  left  on 
the  curb  by  the  iceman,  whenever  Paula — turned  the  cur- 
rent on.  What  made  this  the  more  striking  was  that  Aunt 
Lucile's  normal  mood  to-day  impressed  Mary  as  rather  ag- 
gressively selt-contained.  Was  it  just  that  Mary  had  for- 
gotten how  straight  she  sat  and  how  precisely  she  moved 
about?  Had  she  always  had  that  discreet  significant  air, 
as  if  there  were  something  she  could  talk  about  but  didn't 


58  MARY  WOLLASTON 

mean  to — not  on  any  account?  Or  was  there  something 
going  on  here  at  home  that  awaited — breathlessly  awaited 
— discovery?  Whatever  it  was,  when  Paula  turned  upon 
her  it  went,  laughably; — only  it  would  have  been  a  pretty 
shaky  sort  of  laugh. 

It  was  after  lunch  that  Paula  electrified  them  by  suggest- 
ing that  they  all  go  together  to  a  matinee.  That's  an  illus- 
tration of  the  power  she  had.  To  each  of  the  three,  to 
Lucile  and  to  Mary  as  well  as  to  the  now  infatuated  Rush, 
she  could  make  a  commonplace  scheme  like  that  seem  an 
irresistibly  enticing  adventure.  Lucile  recovered  her  balance 
first,  but  it  was  not  until  Nat  had  fetched  the  morning  paper 
and  they  had  discussed  their  choice  of  entertainments  for 
two  or  three  minutes  that  she  said  of  course  she  couldn't 
go.  She  didn't  know  what  she'd  been  thinking  of.  The 
number  of  things  imperatively  to  be  done  or  seen  to  in 
preparation  for  the  party  to-night  would  keep  her  busy  all 
the  afternoon. 

Then  Mary  followed  suit  If  this  was  really  going  to 
be  a  party — she  hadn't  quite  got  this  idea  before — she'd  have 
to  spend  the  afternoon  unpacking  and  putting  her  frocks  in 
order  or  she  wouldn't  have  anything  to  wear. 

"Well,"  Paula  said  comfortably,  "until  they  turn  me  on 
like  a  Victrola  at  nine  o'clock  or  so,  I've  nothing  to  do  with 
the  party  except  not  think  about  it."  She  made  this  observa- 
tion at  large,  then  turned  on  Rush.  "You'll  come  with  me, 
won't  you,  and  keep  me  from  getting  frightened  until  tea- 
time?" 

Rush  would  go— rather! — but  he  laughed  at  the  word 
"frightened." 

"I'm  not  joking,"  she  said,  and  reaching  out  she  covered 
his  hand,  which  rested  on  the  cloth,  with  one  of  hers. 

He  flushed  instantly  at  that ;  then  said  to  the  others  with 
slightly  elaborated  surprise,  "It  is  cold,  for  a  fact" 


THE  PICTURE  PUZZLE  59 

"So  is  the  other  one,"  said  Paula.  "For  that  matter, 
so  are  my  feet.  And  getting  colder  every  minute.  Come 
along  or  we'll  be  late." 

Mary  branded  this  as  a  bit  of  rather  crude  coquetry. 
It  wasn't  conceivable  that  a  professional  opera  singer  of 
Paula's  experience  could  look  forward  with  any  sort  of 
emotion  to  the  mere  singing  of  a  few  songs  to  a  group 
of  familiar  friends.  It  occurred  to  her,  too,  that  Paula  had 
calculated  on  her  refusal  to  go  to  the  matinee  as  definitely 
as  on  Aunt  Lucile's  and  for  a  moment  she  indulged  the  idea 
of  changing  her  mind  and  going  along  with  them  just  to 
frustrate  this  design.  Only,  of  course,  it  wouldn't  work  that 
way.  She  couldn't  keep  Rush  from  being  taken  away  from 
her  by  playing  the  spoil-sport.  She  couldn't  keep  him  any- 
how she  supposed.  She  made  a  hasty,  rather  forlorn  retreat 
to  her  own  room  as  soon  as  the  departing  pair  were  safely 
out  of  the  house. 

That  room  of  hers  exerted  now  a  rather  curious  effect 
upon  her  mood.  It  had  been  hers  ever  since  her  promotion 
from  the  nursery  and  it,  like  her  brother's  adjoining,  had 
been  kept  unchanged,  unoccupied  during  her  long  absence. 

The  furniture  and  the  decoration  of  it  had  been  her 
mother's  last  Christmas  present.  The  first  Mrs.  Wollaston 
had  lived  under  the  influence  of  the  late  Victorian  esthetes, 
and  Mary's  room  looked  as  if  it  had  been  designed  for 
Elaine  the  lily  maid  of  Astolat,  an  effect  which  was  height- 
ened by  a  large  brown  picture  in  a  broad  brown  frame  of 
Watts'  Sir  Galahad.  After  her  mother's  death,  that  winter, 
Mary  added  a  Botticelli  Madonna,  the  one  with  the  pome- 
granate, which  she  hung  by  itself  on  a  wall  panel.  There 
was  a  narrow  black  oak  table  under  it  to  carry  a  Fra  Angel- 
ico  triptych  flanked  by  two  tall  candlesticks.  It  wasn't 
exactly  a  shrine,  even  if  there  was  a  crimson  cushion  con- 
veniently disposed  before  it,  and  if  Mary  for  a  while  said 


60  MARY  WOLLASTON 

her  prayers  there  instead  of  in  the  old  childish  way  at  her 
bedside,  and  if  she  genuflected  when  she  passed  it,  that  was 
her  own  affair. 

Coming  to  it  now,  as  to  port  after  storms,  with  the  inten- 
tion almost  openly  avowed  to  herself  of  lying  down  upon  the 
bed  and,  for  an  hour  or  two,  feeling  as  sorry  for  herself  as 
she  could,  she  found  an  appalling  strangeness  about  its  very 
familiarity  that  pulled  her  up  short.  The  abyss  she  stared 
into  between  herself  and  the  Mary  Wollaston  whose  image 
was  so  sharply  evoked  by  the  ridiculously  unchanged  par- 
aphernalia of  that  Mary's  life,  turned  her  giddy.  Even  the 
face  which  looked  back  at  her  from  the  frame  of  that  mir- 
ror seemed  the  other  Mary's  rather  than  her  own. 

From  the  doorway  she  stood,  for  a  moment,  staring. 
Then  she  managed  a  smile  (it  was  the  only  possible  attitude 
to  take)  at  Sir  Galahad,  above  the  bed.  The  notion  of  fling- 
ing herself  down  for  a  self-pitying  revel  upon  that  bed, — 
the  other  Mary's  virginal  little  narrow  bed — had  become 
unthinkable.  The  thing  to  do  was  to  stop  thinking. 
Quickly. 

She  stripped  off  her  suit  and  blouse,  slipped  on  a  pongee 
kimono  that  she  got  out  of  her  hand-bag,  unlocked  her 
trunk  and  began  discharging  its  contents  all  about  the  room. 
She  covered  the  chairs  with  them,  the  bed,  the  narrow  table 
— that  had  never  had  anything  upon  it  but  that  Fra  Angelico 
triptych  and  the  two  candlesticks — the  round  table  with  the 
reading  lamp,  the  writing  desk  in  the  corner,  the  floor. 
Then,  a  little  out  of  breath,  she  paused. 

Which  among  two  or  three  possible  frocks  should  she 
wear  for  the  party  to-night  ?  What  sort  of  party  was  it  going 
to  be  anyhow?  It  was  curious,  considering  the  fact  that 
they  had  done  nothing  but  sit  and  talk  all  the  morning,  how 
vague  her  ideas  about  it  were.  Her  father  had  said  some- 
thing out  in  the  car  about  having  a  few  old  friends  in  for 


THE  PICTURE  PUZZLE  61 

dinner.  Paula  was  going  to  sing  and  professed  herself 
frightened  by  the  prospect.  Also  she  had  cited  it  as  the 
reason  for  an  unusually  and  almost  strenuously  unoccupied 
day.  On  the  other  hand  it  was  keeping  Aunt  Lucile  dis- 
tractedly busy. 

Was  it  the  chance  result  of  their  preoccupation  with 
other  things  that  she  had  been  given  no  more  intelligible 
account  of  it,  or  was  it  something  that  all  three  of  them,  her 
father,  Paula  and  Aunt  Lucile,  were  walking  round  the 
edge  of?  The  nub  of  some  seriously  trivial  quarrel?  Was 
that  why  Paula  was  so  elaborately  disengaged  and  Aunt 
Lucile  so  portentous  ?  Was  it  even  perhaps  why  her  father 
had  so  abruptly  fled  this  morning  without  coming  into  the 
house  ? 

She  treated  this  surmise  kindly.  It  was  something  to 
think  about  anyhow:  something  to  sharpen  her  wits  upon, 
just  as  a  cat  stretches  her  claws  in  the  nap  of  the  drawing- 
room  rug.  She  rescued  from  oblivion  half  a  dozen  remarks 
heard  during  the  morning,  whose  significance  had  gone  over 
her  head,  and  tentatively  fitted  them  together  like  bits  of  a 
picture  puzzle.  She  hadn't  enough  to  go  on  but  she  believed 
there  was  something  there.  And  when  a  little  later  in  the 
afternoon,  she  'heard,  along  with  a  knock  on  her  door,  her 
aunt  asking  if  she  might  come  in,  she  gave  her  an  enthusi- 
astic welcome,  scooped  an  armful  of  things  out  of  a  chair 
and  cleared  a  sitting  space  for  herself  at  the  foot  of  the  bed. 

"Would  this  blue  thing  do  for  to-night  ?"  she  asked,  "or 
isn't  it  enough  of  an  affair?  What  sort  of  party  is  it  any- 
how?" 

"Goodness  knows,"  said  Lucile.  "Between  your  father 
and  Paula  I  find  it  rather  upsetting." 

Mary  had  reached  out  negligently  for  her  cigarette  case, 
lighted  one  and  letting  it  droop  at  a  rather  impossible  angle, 
supported  by  the  lightest  pressure  of  her  lips  so  that  the 


62  MARY  WOLLASTON 

smoke  crept  up  over  her  face  into  her  lashes  and  her  hair, 
folded  her  hands  demurely  in  her  lap  and  waited  for  her 
aunt  to  go  on.  She  was  mischievously  half  aware  of  the 
disturbing  effect  of  this  sort  of  thing  upon  Lucile. 

"What  has  there  been  between  them?"  Mary  asked, 
when  it  became  clear  that  her  aunt  needed  prompting.  "Be- 
tween father  and  Paula,  I  mean.  Not  a  row?" 

Mary  never  used  language  like  this  except  provocatively. 
It  worked  on  her  aunt  as  she  had  meant  it  to. 

"There  has  been  nothing  between  them,"  she  said,  "that 
requires  a  rowdy  word  like  that  to  express.  It  has  not  been 
even  a  quarrel.  But  they  have  been  for  the  last  day  or  two, 
a  little — at  .  .  ." 

"Outs?"  Mary  suggested. 

This  had  been  the  word  on  Lucile's  tongue.  "At 
cross  purposes,"  she  amended  and  paused  again.  But  Mary 
seeing  that  she  was  fairly  launched  waited,  economically, 
meanwhile,  inhaling  all  the  smoke  from  her  cigarette.  "I 
suppose  after  all,  it's  quite  natural,"  Lucile  began,  "that 
Paula  should  attract  geniuses,  since  she's  rather  by  way  of 
being  one  herself." 

Mary  took  the  cigarette  in  her  fingers  so  that  she  could 
speak  a  little  more  crisply  than  was  possible  around  it. 
"Who  is  the  genius  she's  attracting  now?  Doesn't  father 
like  him?  And  is  he  being  not  asked  to  the  party?  I'm 
sorry,  aunt,  I  didn't  mean  to  interrupt." 

"He  is  being  asked  which,  it  appears,  is  what  Paula 
objects  to;  only  not  until  after  dinner.  That  she  insisted 
upon.  Really,"  she  went  on,  in  response  to  her  niece's  per- 
plexed frown,  "I  shall  be  much  more  intelligible  if  you'll 
let  me  begin  at  the  beginning." 

"Please  do,"  said  Mary.    "Where  did  Paula  find  him?" 

"I  found  him,"  said  Miss  Wollaston.  "Paula  discovered 
him  a  little  later.  I  found  him  on  a  bench  in  the  park  and 


THE  PICTURE  PUZZLE  63 

told  him  he  might  come  to  tune  the  drawing-room  piano. 
Paula  had  him  tune  her  piano  instead  and  spent  what  must 
have  been  a  rather  mad  day  with  him  over  it.  He  brought 
round  some  songs  the  next  day  for  her  to  try  and  she  and 
Portia  Stanton's  husband  have  been  practising  them  with 
hardly  any  intermission  since.  The  idea  was  that  when  they 
had  'got  them  up'  as  they  say,  the  man, — March  his  name 
is,  Anthony  March,  I  think, — should  be  invited  round  to 
hear  Paula  sing  them.  Paula  insists,  absurdly  it  seems  to 
me,  that  he  never  has  heard  a  note  of  them  himself;  that 
he  can't  even  play  them  upon  the  piano.  How  he  could 
compose  them  without  playing  them  on  the  piano  first,  is 
beyond  me.  But  she  is  inclined  to  be  a  little  emotional,  I 
think,  over  the  whole  episode.  Quite  naturally — even  Paula 
can't  deny  that — your  father  thought  he  would  like  to  be 
present  when  the  songs  were  sung  and  it  was  arranged  that 
it  should  be  this  evening." 

"She  may  not  have  been  able  to  deny  that  it  was  natural," 
Mary  observed,  "but  I'd  bet  she  didn't  like  it." 

"It's  only  fair  to  Paula  to  say,"  Miss  Wollaston  insisted, 
"that  she  did  nothing  to  exhibit  a  feeling  of  that  sort.  But 
when,  at  John's  suggestion,  I  spoke  of  the  possibility  of  hav- 
ing in  the  Cravens  and  the  Blakes, — the  Cravens  are  very 
musical,  you  know — and  Wallace  Hood  who  would  be  really 
hurt  if  we  left  him  out,  Paula  came  nearer  to  being  down- 
right rude  than  she  often  allows  herself  to  be.  She  said 
among  other  things  that  she  didn't  propose  to  have  March 
subjected  to  a  'suffocating'  affair  like  that.  She  said  she 
wanted  him  free  to  interrupt  as  often  as  he  liked  and  tell 
them  how  rotten  they  were.  That  was  her  phrase.  When 
I  observed  that  Mr.  March  didn't  impress  me  as  the  sort  of 
person  who  could  conceivably  wish  to  be  rude  as  that  she 
said  he  could  no  more  remember  to  be  polite  when  he  heard 
those  songs  for  the  first  time  than  she  herself  could  sing 


64  MARY  WOLLASTON 

them  in  corsets.  She  summed  it  up  by  saying  that  it  wasn't 
going  to  be  a  polite  affair  and  the  fewer  polite  people  there 
were,  hanging  about,  the  better.  There  was,  naturally, 
nothing  I  could  say  to  that." 

"I  should  think  not,"  Mary  agreed,  exhaling  rather  ex- 
plosively an  enormous  cloud  of  smoke.  "Poor  Aunt 
Lucile!"  Her  commiseration  didn't  sound  more  than  skin 
deep. 

"The  matter  rested  there,"  the  elder  woman  went  on, 
"until  your  father  received  Rush's  telegram  that  you  were 
coming  to-day.  Then  he  took  matters  into  his  own  hands 
and  gave  me  a  list  of  the  people  he  wanted  asked.  There 
are  to  be  about  a  dozen  besides  ourselves  at  dinner  and  per- 
haps as  many  more  are  to  come  after." 

"I  can  see  Paula  when  you  told  her  that,"  Mary  re- 
flected. "Or  did  you  make  dad  tell  her  himself?  Yes,  of 
course  you  did !  Only  what  I  can't  understand  is  why  Paula 
didn't  say,  'All  right.  Have  your  party,  and  I'll  sing  if  you 
want  me  to.  Only  not — what's  his  name  ? — March's  songs.' 
And  have  him  all  to  herself,  as  she  wanted  him,  later.  That 
would  have  been  mate  in  one  move,  I  should  think." 

Then,  at  the  fleeting  look  she  caught  in  the  act  of  vanish- 
ing from  her  aunt's  face,  she  cried,  "You  mean  she  did  say 
that  ?  And  that  father  turned  to  ice,  the  way  he  can  and — 
made  a  point  of  it?  You  know  it's  serious,  if  he's  done 
that." 

With  a  vigor  meant  to  compensate  for  a  sad  lack  of  con- 
viction, Miss  Wollaston  protested  against  this  chain  of  un- 
warranted assumptions.  But  she  admitted,  at  last,  that  her 
own  surmise  accorded  with  that  of  her  niece.  John  cer- 
tainly had  said  to  her  at  breakfast  that  he  saw  no  reason 
for  foregoing  the  musical  feature  of  the  evening  simply  be- 
cause an  audience  was  to  be  present  to  hear  it.  Paula's 
only  comment  had  been  a  dispassionate  prediction  that  it 


THE  PICTURE  PUZZLE  65 

wouldn't  work.  It  wouldn't  be  fair  to  say  she  sulked ;  her 
rather  elaborate  detachment  had  been  too  good-humored 
for  that.  Her  statement,  at  lunch,  that  she  was  to  be  turned 
on  like  a  Victrola  at  half  past  nine,  was  a  fair  sample. 

"What's  he  like,  this  genius  of  hers?"  Mary  wanted  to 
know.  "Young  and  downy  and  helpless,  I  suppose.  With 
a  look  as  if  he  was  just  about  to  burst  into  tears.  I  met 
one  like  that  last  winter."  She  knew  exactly  how  to  get 
results  out  of  her  aunt. 

"He's  not  in  the  least  like  that !  If  he  had  been  I  should 
never  have  brought  him  home,  not  even  to  tune  the  piano. 
He's  quite  a  well  behaved,  sensible-appearing  young  man,  a 
little  over  thirty,  I  should  say.  And  he  does  speak  nicely, 
though  I  think  Paula  exaggerates  about  that." 

"Sensible  or  not,  he's  fallen  wildly  in  love  with  her,  of 
course,"  Mary  observed.  "The  more  so  they  are  the  more 
instantaneously  they  do  it." 

But  this  lead  was  one  Miss  Wollaston  absolutely  de- 
clined to  follow.  "If  that  clock's  right,"  she  exclaimed, 
gazing  at  a  little  traveling  affair  Mary  had  brought  home 
with  her,  "I  haven't  another  minute."  It  was  not  right,  for 
it  was  still  keeping  New  York  time,  but  the  diversion  served. 
"Wallace  Hood  spoke  of  coming  in  to  see  you  about  tea- 
time,"  she  said  from  the  doorway.  "I'm  going  to  be  too 
busy  even  to  stop  for  a  cup,  so  do  be  down  if  you  can." 


CHAPTER  V 

JOHN    MAKES  A   POINT  OF  IT 

MA.RY  was  warmly  touched  by  the  thought  of  Wallace's 
coming  to  see  her  in  that  special  sort  of  way  when  he 
was  certain  of  finding  her  at  dinner  an  hour  or  two  later. 
Her  feelings  about  him  were  rather  mixed  but  he  dated 
back  to  the  very  earliest  of  her  memories,  and  his  kindly 
affectionate  attitude  toward  her  had  never  failed,  even  dur- 
ing those  periods  when  she  had  treated  him  most  detestably. 
Even  as  a  little  girl,  she  had  been  aware  of  his  sentimental 
attachment  to  her  mother  and  perhaps  in  an  instinctive 
way  had  resented  it,  though  her  actual  indictment  against 
Wallace  in  those  days  had  always  been  that  he  made  her 
naughty;  incited  her  by  his  perpetual  assumption  that  she 
was  the  angelic  little  creature  she  looked,  to  one  desperate 
misdemeanor  after  another,  for  which  her  father  usually 
punished  her.  Mary  had,  superficially  anyhow,  her  mother's 
looks  along  with  her  father's  temper. 

But  for  two  years  after  Mrs.  Wollaston's  death,  she  and 
Wallace  had  been  very  good  friends.  She  was  grateful  to 
him  for  treating  her  like  a  grown-up,  for  talking  to  her,  as 
he  often  did,  about  her  mother  and  how  much  she  had  meant 
to  him.  (She  owed  it,  indeed,  largely  to  Wallace  that  her 
memories  of  this  sentimental,  romantic,  passionless  lady 
with  whom  in  life  she  had  never  been  completely  in  sym- 
pathy, were  as  sweet  and  satisfactory  as  they  were.)  He 
had  taken  infinite  pains  with  her,  guiding  her  reading  and 
her  enjoyment  of  pictures  in  the  paths  of  good  taste.  He 
took  her  to  concerts  sometimes,  too,  though  at  this  point 
her  docility  ceased.  She  wouldn't  be  musical  for  anybody. 
He  gave  her  much-needed  advice  in  dealing  with  social 

66 


JOHN  MAKES  A  POIN.T  OF  IT  67 

matters  which  her  sudden  prematurity  forced  her  to  cope 
with.  And  with  all  this  went  a  placidity  which  had  no  part 
at  all  in  her  relations  with  her  father. 

She  got  the  idea,  during  this  period,  that  he  meant,  when 
she  was  a  little  older,  to  ask  her  to  marry  him,  and  she 
sometimes  speculated  whether,  if  he  did,  she  would.  There 
would  be  something  beautifully  appropriate  about  it ; — like 
the  Professor's  Love  Story.  Usually,  though,  she  termin- 
ated the  scene  with  a  tender  refusal. 

She  had  long  known,  of  course,  how  unreal  all  this  was, 
Wallace  had  faded  into  complete  invisibility  at  the  time 
when  she  fell  in  love  with  Captain  Burch  and  quarreled 
with  her  father  about  him.  She  couldn't  remember  after- 
ward whether  he  had  even  been  on  the  scene  or  not.  But 
the  savor  of  their  friendship,  though  mild,  was  a  pleasant 
one  and  there  was  none  of  her  old  acquaintances  she'd 
rather  have  looked  forward  to  to-day  at  tea-time  in  the  draw- 
ing-room. She  knew  exactly  what  he  would  be  like;  just 
what  they  would  say  to  each  other.  The  only  doubt  in  her 
mind  was  whether  he'd  bring  her  chocolates  or  daffodils. 

She  guessed  wrong.  It  was  a  box  of  candied  straw- 
berries that  he  gave  her  as  soon  as  their  double  hand-shake 
set  him  free.  But  nothing  else  came  at  once  to  the  surface 
to  falsify  her  prevision.  She  remembered  how  he  liked  his 
tea  and  was  able  to  get  an  affectionate  warmth  into  her 
voice,  that  sounded  real  though  strangely  enough  it  wasn't, 
in  agreeing  with  him  how  like  old  times  this  was  and  how 
good  it  seemed  to  be  home.  Then  came  the  joy  of  having 
Rush  back  again,  and  the  war,  and  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence,— only  we  weren't  going  to  talk  about  things  like  that. 
And  then  Alan  Seeger,  Rupert  Brooke,  Conningsby  Dawson. 

But  oddly  enough,  she  felt  herself  going  back  to  still 
older  times,  to  the  abominable  little  girl  who  had  yielded  to 
irresistible  desires  such  as  making  faces  at  him  and  rubbing 


68  MARY  WOLLASTON 

the  nap  of  his  silk  hat  the  wrong  way.  She  repressed, 
vigorously,  this  lawless  vein.  She  was  determined  for  this 
one  day  to  be  just  as  nice  as  he  tried,  so  hard,  to  think  she 
was.  But  with  this  resolution  occupying  her  mind  the  talk 
presently  ran  rather  thin,  her  contribution  to  it  for  whole 
minutes  drying  up  entirely.  It  was  after  a  rather  blank 
silence  that  he  said  he  supposed  Paula  was  lying  down, 
resting  for  to-night's  performance.  His  inflection  struck 
Mary  as  a  little  too  casual  and  reminded  her  that  it  was  his 
first  mention  of  her  stepmother's  name.  This  roused  her 
attention. 

"Oh,  Paula's  off  playing  with  Rush,"  she  said.  "I  be- 
lieve they  went  to  a  matinee." 

He  exclaimed  at  that,  over  Paula's  stores  of  energy  and 
her  reckless  ways  of  spending  them.  He  said  she  gave  him 
the  impression  of  being  absolutely  tireless,  superimposing 
a  high  speed  society  existence  which  John  Wollaston  and 
he,  in  relays,  could  hardly  keep  up  with,  upon  the  heavy 
routine  of  work  in  her  studio.  He  illustrated  this  with  a 
schedule  of  her  activities  during  the  last  three  days.  "Oh, 
yes,"  he  threw  in,  in  parenthesis,  "I'm  as  much  in  the  family 
as  ever.  When  your  father  can't  do  escort  duty,  they  call 
on  me."  He  added  in  conclusion  that  he  was  glad  she  had 
already  made  a  start  toward  getting  acquainted  with  Rush. 

Was  this  relief,  Mary  wondered — at  learning  that  she 
was  not  at  this  moment  engaged  less  domestically  somewhere 
with  Anthony  March  ?  But  she  doubted  whether  this  was  a 
good  guess.  If  he  did  feel  any  such  relief,  it  was  not,  at 
all  events,  from  a  personal  jealousy;  for  the  illuminating 
conviction  had  come  over  her  that  Wallace  could  not  pos- 
sibly be  one  of  Paula's  conquests.  A  man  still  capable  of 
cherishing  as  the  most  beautiful  event  of  his  life,  that  senti- 
mental platonic  friendship  he  had  enjoyed  with  her  mother, 
would  be  immune  against  Paula's  spells. 


JOHN  MAKES  A  POINT  OF  IT  69 

She  wondered  if  he  wasn't  a  little  afraid  of  Paula.  If 
he  did  not,  in  his  heart,  actually  dislike  her.  But  if  this 
were  true,  why  did  he  willingly  devote  so  many  of  his  hours 
to  squiring  her  about,  substituting  for  her  husband?  (She 
told  herself,  as  one  discovering  a  great  truth,  that  a  substi- 
tute was  exactly  what  Heaven  had  ordained  Wallace  Hood 
to  be.)  She  kept  him  going  about  Paula  easily  enough,  as 
a  sort  of  obbligato  to  these  meditations  and  her  name  was 
on  Wallace's  lips  when  John  Wollaston  came  into  the  room. 

"Where  is  she?"  he  asked  Mary.  "I  hoped  I'd  find  her 
resting  for  to-night."  Evidently  he  had  been  up  to  her 
room  to  see.  The  relief  was  plainly  legible  in  his  face  when 
he  got  Mary's  answer. 

"She  and  Rush,  eh,"  he  said.  "I'm  glad  they've  made 
a  start  together,  but  they  ought  to  be  back  by  now.  They 
drove,  didn't  they  ?" 

She  couldn't  inform  him  as  to  that  and  by  way  of  getting 
him  to  come  to  anchor,  offered  him  his  tea. 

"Oh,  I'll  wait  for  the  others,"  he  said.  "They  can't  be 
much  later  than  this. — I'm  glad  she's  taken  a  vacation  from 
those  songs,"  he  went  on  presently  from  the  fireplace.  "She 
told  me  last  night  she'd  been  working  all  day  with  Novelli 
over  them.  Only  sent  him  home  about  half  an  hour  before 
it  was  time  for  her  to  dress  for  dinner.  Do  you  suppose," 
— this  to  Wallace — "that  they're  as  wonderful  as  she  thinks 
they  are?" 

It  was  obvious  to  Mary  that  Hood's  reply  was  calculated 
to  soothe ;  his  attitude  was  indulgent.  He  talked  to  Mary 
about  March  as  just  another  of  Paula's  delightful  extrava- 
gances. March's  indignant  refusal,  at  first,  to  tune  the  Gr- 
cassian  grand,  his  trick  of  sitting  on  the  floor  under  Paula's 
piano  while  she  played  for  him,  his  forgetting  to  be  paid, 
though  he  had  not,  in  all  probability,  a  cent  in  his  pockets, 
were  exhibited  as  whimsicalities,  such  as  Wallace's  favorite 


70  MARY  WOLLASTON 

author,  J.  M.  Barrie,  might  have  invented.  It  was  just  like 
Paula  to  take  him  up  as  she  had  done,  to  work  away  for 
days  at  his  songs,  proclaiming  the  wonder  of  them  all  the 
while.  "We're  all  hoping,  of  course,"  he  concluded,  "that 
when  she's  finished  with  them  to-night,  she'll  sing  us  some 
of  the  old  familiar  music  we  really  love." 

The  neat  finality  of  all  this,  produced,  momentarily,  the 
effect  of  ranging  Mary  on  the  other  side,  with  Paula  and 
her  musician.  But  just  at  this  point,  she  lost  her  character 
of  disinterested  spectator,  for  Wallace,  having  put  March 
back  in  his  box  and  laid  him  deliberately  on  the  shelf, 
abruptly  produced,  by  way  of  diversion,  another  piece  of 
goods  altogether. 

"I  hope  Mary's  come  home  to  stay,"  he  said  to  John. 
"We  can't  let  her  go  away  again,  can  we?" 

Afterward,  she  was  able  to  see  that  it  was  a  natural 
enough  thing  for  him  to  have  said.  It  would  never  have 
occurred  to  him,  pleasant,  harmless  sentimentalist  that  he 
was,  that  John's  second  marriage  might  be  a  disturbing 
factor  in  his  relation  with  Mary  and  that  the  question  so 
cheerfully  asked  as  an  escape  from  the  more  serious  matter 
that  he  had  been  talking  about,  struck  straight  into  a  gang- 
lion of  nerves. 

But  at  the  time,  no  such  excuse  for  him  presented  itself. 
She  stared  for  a  moment,  breathless,  paled  a  little  and  locked 
her  teeth  so  that  they  shouldn't  chatter;  then,  a  wave  of 
bright  anger  relaxed  her  stiffened  muscles.  She  did  not 
look  at  her  father  but  was  aware  that  he  was  fixedly  not 
looking  at  her. 

"I  don't  know  whether  I  am  going  to  stay  or  not,"  she 
said  casually  enough.  "There  isn't  any  particular  reason 
why  I  should,  unless  I  can  find  something  to  do.  You 
haven't  a  job  for  me,  have  you?" 

"A  job?"  Wallace  gasped. 


JOHN  MAKES  A  POINT  OF  IT  71 

"In  your  office,"  she  explained.  "Filing  and  typing,  or 
running  the  mimeograph.  It  seems  to  be  a  choice  between 
something  like  that  and — millinery." 

"That's  an  extravagant  idea,"  her  father  said,  trying  for, 
but  not  quite  able  to  manage,  a  tone  that  matched  hers. 
"Good  lord,  Wallace,  don't  sit  there  looking  as  if  you 
thought  she  meant  it !" 

"You  do  look  perfectly — consternated,"  she  said  with  a 
pretty  good  laugh.  "Never  mind ;  I  shan't  do  anything  out- 
rageous for  a  week  or  two.  Oh,  here  they  come.  Will  you 
ring,  dad  ?  I  want  some  more  hot  water." 

Rush  came  into  the  drawing-room  alone,  Paula  having 
lingered  a  moment,  probably  before  the  mirror  in  the  hall. 
Mere  professional  instinct  for  arranging  entrances  for  her- 
self, Mary  surmised  this  to  be.  And  she  may  have  been 
right  for  Paula  was  not  one  of  those  women  who  are  for- 
ever making  minute  readjustments  before  a  glass.  But 
when  she  came  in,  just  after  Wallace  Hood  had  accom- 
plished his  welcome  of  the  returned  soldier,  it  was  hard  to 
believe  that  she  was  concerned  about  the  effect  she  pro- 
duced upon  the  group  about  the  tea-table.  She  didn't,  in- 
deed, altogether  join  it,  gave  them  a  collective  nod  of  greet- 
ing with  a  faint  but  special  smile  for  her  husband  on  the 
end  of  it  and  then  deliberately  seated  herself  with  a  "No, 
don't  bother;  this  is  all  right,"  at  the  end  of  the  little  sofa 
that  stood  in  the  curve  of  the  grand  piano,  rather  in  the 
background. 

When  Mary  asked  her  how  she  wanted  her  tea,  she  said 
she  didn't  think  she'd  have  any;  and  certainly  no  cakes. 
No,  not  even  one  of  Wallace's  candied  strawberries.  There 
was  an  exchange  of  glances  between  her  and  Rush  over  this. 

"They  have  been  having  tea  by  themselves,  those  two," 
Mary  remarked. 

"No,"  said  Rush,  "not  what  you  could  call  tea." 


72  MARY  WOLLASTON 

Paula  smiled  vaguely  but  didn't  throw  the  ball  back,  did 
not  happen,  it  appeared,  to  care  to  talk  about  anything. 
Presently  the  chatter  among  the  rest  of  them  renewed  iself. 

Only  it  would  have  amused  an  invisible  spectator  to  note 
how  those  three  Wollastons,  blonde,  dolichocephalic,  high- 
strung,  magnetically  susceptible,  responded,  as  strips  of 
gold-leaf  to  the  static  electricity  about  a  well  rubbed  amber 
rod,  to  the  influence  that  emanated  from  that  silent  figure  on 
the  sofa.  Rush,  in  and  out  of  his  chair  a  dozen  times,  to 
flip  the  ash  from  his  cigarette,  to  light  one  for  Mary,  to  hand 
the  strawberries  round  again,  was  tugging  at  his  moorings 
like  a  captive  balloon.  When  he  answered  a  question  it  was 
with  the  air  of  interrupting  an  inaudible  tune  he  was  whist- 
ling. John  still  planted  before  the  fireplace,  taking,  auto- 
matically, a  small  part  in  the  talk  just  as  he  went  through 
the  minimum  of  business  with  his  tea,  seemed  capable  of 
only  one  significant  action,  which  he  repeated  at  short,  . 
irregular  intervals.  He  turned  his  head  enough  to  enable 
him  to  see  into  a  mirror  which  gave  him  a  reflection  of  his 
wife's  face;  then  turned  away  again,  like  one  waiting  for 
some  sort  of  reassurance  and  not  getting  it.  Mary,  mus- 
cularly  relaxed,  indeed,  drooping  over  the  tea-table,  had 
visible  about  her,  nevertheless,  a  sort  of  supernormal  alert- 
ness. Every  time  her  father  looked  into  the  mirror  she 
glanced  at  him,  and  she  rippled,  like  still  water,  at  all  of 
her  brother's  sudden  movements. 

As  for  Wallace  Hood,  one  look  at  him  sitting  there,  as  t 
unresponsive  to  the  spell  as  the  cup  from  which  he  was 
sipping  its  third  replenishment  of  tea,  would  have  explained 
his  domestication  in  that  household ; — the  necessity,  in  fact, 
for  domesticating  among  them  some  one  who  was  always 
buoyantly  upon  the  surface,  whose  talk,  in  comfortably 
rounded  sentences,  flowed  along  with  a  mild  approximation 
to  wit,  whose  sentiments  were  never  barbed  with  passion ;  > 


JOHN  MAKES  A  POINT  OF  IT  73 

'  — who  was,  to  sum  him  up  in  one  embracing  word,  appro- 
priate. 

Mary,  in  addition  to  feeling  repentant  over  her  outbreak 
just  before  Paula  came  in,  experienced  a  sort  of  gratitude 
to  him  for  being  able  to  sit  squarely  facing  the  sofa,  un- 
troubled by  the  absent  thoughtful  face  and  the  figure  a 
little  languorously  disposed  that  confronted  him.  His  bright 
generalities  were  addressed  to  her  as  much  as  to  the  rest 
of  them ;  his  smile  asked  the  same  response  from  her  and 
nothing  more. 

Nothing  short  of  an  explosion  that  shattered  all  their 
surfaces  at  once  could  have  got  a  single  vibration  out  of 
him.  By  that  same  token,  when  the  explosion  did  occur,  he 
was  the  most  helpless  person  there,  the  only  one  of  them 
who  could  really  be  called  panic-stricken. 

John  had,  at  last,  crossed  the  room  and  seated  himself 
beside  his  wife.  He  spoke  to  her  in  a  low  voice  but  her 
full-throated  reply  was  audible  everywhere  in  the  room. 

"No,  I'm  not  tired  and  I  really  don't  want  any  tea.  I've 
gone  slack  on  purpose  because  that's  how  I  want  to  be  till 
nine  o'clock.  I've  just  eaten  an  enormous  oyster  stew  with 
Rush.  That's  what  we  waited  for."  • 

John  frowned.  "My  dear,  you'll  have  ruined  your  appe- 
tite for  dinner." 

"I  hope  so,"  she  said,  "because  I'm  not  to  have  any." 

At  that,  from  the  other  two  men,  there  began  an  ex- 
postulatory — "No  dinner !"  "You  don't  mean  .  .  . !"  but 
it  was  silenced  by  John's  crisp— "You're  planning  not  to 
come  down  to  dinner,  then  ?" 

"Oh,  I'll  come  down,"  said  Paula,  "and  111  sit.  But 
I  don't  mean  to  eat  anything.  Unless  you  think  that  will  be 
too  much  like  a — what  is  it? — skeleton  at  the  feast." 

"I  think  it  would  seem  somewhat — exaggerated,"  he 
said. 


74  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"Well,"  Paula  retorted,  drawing  the  rest  of  the  room  into 
it  again  just  as  Wallace  was  making  a  gallant  effort  to  start 
a  subsidiary  conversation  to  serve  as  a  screen,  "that's  be- 
cause you  haven't  heard  those  songs.  If  there's  a  singer  in 
the  world  who'd  dare — cut  loose  with  them  right  after  eat- 
ing the  sort  of  dinner  Lucile  will  have  to-night  for  Mary 
and  Rush,  I'd  like  to  see  him  try  it." 

"I  didn't  mean  to  imply  that  they  were  not  difficult.  I 
dare  say  they  are  all  but  impossible.  But  it  does  seem  to  me 
that  you  are  taking  the  occasion  of  singing  them — a  little 
too — emotionally." 

The  tone  he  was  trying  for  was  meant  to  have  nothing 
in  it — for  other  ears  than  hers,  at  least,  beyond  mere  good- 
humored  remonstrance.  But  her  reply  tore  all  pretense 
aside.  She  let  him  have  it  straight. 

"You're  the  one  who's  being  emotional  about  it,"  she 
said. 

The  blood  leaped  into  his  face  at  that  but  he  did  not 
reply. 

"Look  here,  John,"  she  went  on — and  her  big  voice  swept 
away  the  polite  convention  that  the  others  were  not  listen- 
ing, "I've  told  you  that  this  won't  work  and  you  must  see 
now  that  that's  true.  There's  still  time  to  call  up  March 
and  tell  him  that  it's  to-morrow  instead  of  to-day.  Because 
of  Rush  and  Mary.  Won't  you  let  me  do  that  ?" 

It  is  just  possible  that  if  he  had  been  alone  with  her,  he 
might  have  acknowledged  the  issue,  might  have  admitted 
that  this  new  composer  whose  works  she  had  been  so  ab- 
sorbed in,  frightened  him,  figured  in  his  mind  as  the  present 
manifestation  of  a  force  that  was  trying  to  take  her  away 
from  him.  And  having  let  her  see  that,  he  could  safely 
enough  have  said,  "Have  your  own  way  about  it.  YOU 
know  what  will  work  and  what  won't.  Only  make  it  as 
easy  for  me  as  you  can."  But  in  the  presence  of  his  chil- 


JOHN  MAKES  A  POINT  OF  IT  75 

dren — it  was  they,  rather  than  Wallace,  that  he  minded — 
he  was  at  once  evasive  and  domineering. 

"I  thought  we'd  already  disposed  of  that  suggestion," 
he  said.  "If  the  situation  is  as  it  has  been  made  to  appear 
to  me  there  is  not  the  smallest  reason  why  March  should  be 
put  off ;  why  Mary  and  Rush  and  the  friends  we  have  asked 
in  to  meet  them,  shouldn't  be  permitted  to  hear  his  songs ; 
or  why  I  shouldn't  myself.  I  think  we'll  consider  that 
settled." 

Paula  rose  all  in  one  piece.  "Very  well,"  she  said — to 
the  audience,  "it  is  settled.  Also  it's  settled  that  I  shall  not 
come  down  to  dinner.  As  for  what  people  will  think,  I'll 
leave  that  to  you.  You  can  make  any  explanation  you  like. 
But  I  shall  sing  those  songs  to  March — and  for  him — for 
all  they're  worth.  I  don't  care  who  else  is  there  or  whether 
they  like  it  or  not. — A  lot  of  patronizing  amateurs!  Bring 
them  up  to  the  music  room  about  nine  o'clock,  if  you  like. 
I'll  be  there." 

She  left  behind  her,  in  that  Victorian  drawing-room,  a 
silence  that  tingled. 


CHAPTER  VI 

STRINGENDO 

A  CRISIS  of  this  sort  was  just  what  the  Wollastons 
needed  to  tune  them  up.  The  four  of  them,  for 
Lucile  had  to  be  counted  in,  met  the  enemy — which  is  to 
say  their  arriving  guests — with  an  unbroken  front.  They 
explained  Paula's  non-appearance  with  good-humored  un- 
concern. She  was  afraid  if  she  sat  down  to  Lucile's  dinner 
that  she  would  forget  her  duty  and  eat  it  and  find  herself 
fatally  incapacitated  for  cutting  loose  on  Mr.  March's  songs 
afterward.  They  must  be  rather  remarkable  songs  that  re- 
quired to  be  approached  in  so  Spartan  a  manner.  Well, 
Paula  assured  us  that  they  were.  The  family  declined  all 
responsibility  in  the  matter,  not  having  themselves  heard  a 
note  of  them,  but  if  you  wanted  to  you  might  ask  Mr. 
Novelli,  over  there.  He'd  been  working  over  them  with 
Paula  for  days.  As  for  the  composer,  he  was  as  much  a 
mystery  as  his  songs.  He  wasn't  coming  to  the  dinner  but 
was  expected  to  appear  from  somewhere  afterward. 

Novelli,  as  it  happened,  was  not  very  productive  of 
information.  Half  an  hour  before  the  dinner,  his  wife  had 
telephoned  Lucile  to  ask  if  he  might  bring  a  guest  of  his 
own,  a  certain  Monsieur  LaChaise,  who  was  one  of  the 
conductors  at  the  Metropolitan  and  was  to  have  the  direc- 
tion of  the  summer  opera  out  here  at  Ravinia  this 
year.  Portia  added  with  the  falsely  deprecatory  air  of  a 
mother  apologizing  for  a  child's  prank,  that  Pietro  had  in 
fact,  already  invited  him  to  the  dinner  and  had  only  just 
informed  her  of  the  fact.  Lucile  had  assured  her,  of 
course,  that  this  addition  to  the  company  would  cause  not 

76 


STRINGENDO  77 

the  slightest  inconvenience,  served  on  the  contrary  to  bring 
it  up  to  the  number  that  had  originally  been  counted  upon. 

When  LaChaise  arrived  the  discovery  that  he  talked  no 
English  at  all  beyond  a  few  rudimentary  phrases,  a  fact 
which  normally  would  have  seemed  calamitous,  was  now 
merely  treated  as  an  added  feature  of  the  evening.  He  and 
Novelli  were  in  the  midst  of  an  animated  discussion  when 
they  arrived.  They  stuck  together  in  the  drawing-room  as 
if  locked  in  the  same  pair  of  handcuffs  and  seating  arrange- 
ments were  hastily  revised  so  that  they  might  go  on  talking 
in  untroubled  mutual  absorption  straight  through  the  dinner, 
Rush  being  placed  handily  by,  where  he  could  come  to  the 
rescue  in  case  of  need. 

It  was  only  the  extremest  surface  of  Mary  sitting  at  the 
head  of  the  table  in  Paula's  place  (which  once  had  been 
her  own)  that  was  engaged  with  her  unforeseen  duties  as 
hostess.  And  yet  in  a  way,  the  whole  of  her  consciousness 
had  been  drawn  to  the  surface.  The  strong  interior  excite- 
ment that  had  been  burning  in  her  during  all  this  day  of 
her  home-coming,  the  rising  conviction  that  life  at  home 
might  turn  out  to  be  something  very  different  indeed  from 
the  thing  that  it  had,  down  in  New  York,  looked  like,  the 
blend  of  foreboding  with  anticipation  that  accompanied  it, 
and  finally  a  sense  of  the  imminence  of  something  impor- 
tant, not  quite  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  quarrel  between 
her  father  and  his  wife, — all  this  emotional  reaction  found 
its  outlet  during  the  long  dinner  in  a  quite  unusual  vivacity. 
Her  sphere  of  influence  spread  down  the  table  until  it  em- 
braced a  full  half  the  length  of  it  on  both  sides  and  those 
just  beyond  the  reach  of  it,  aware  that  they  were  missing 
something,  listened  but  distractedly  to  the  talk  of  their  more 
remote  partners.  And  while  she  was  doing  all  this  she 
manajfecl  with  her  left  hand,  as  it  were,  to  keep  going  a 
vivid  little  confidential  flirtation  with  the  Stannard  boy,  Gra- 


78  MARY  WQLLASTON 

ham,  a  neighbor  and  a  contemporary  of  hers  just  back  from 
service  on  a  destroyer. 

The  thing  that  stimulated  her  to  all  this  was  a  conscious- 
ness of  her  father's  intense  awareness  of  her.  She  had  been 
deliberately  evasive  of  him  since  his  quarrel  with  Paula. 
What  he  wanted  of  her  she  knew  as  well  as  if  he  had  ex- 
pressed the  need  of  it  in  so  many  words.  He  had  turned 
to  her  for  it  as  soon  as  Paula  had  gone  up-stairs  and  Rush 
had  accompanied  the  thoroughly  demoralized  Wallace  into 
the  hall.  She  had  found  a  certain  hard  satisfaction  in  deny- 
ing it  to  him,  in  not  nestling  up  into  the  arms  that  happened, 
for  the  moment,  to  be  vacant  of  Paula.  This  was  so  impera- 
tive an  instinct  that  she  had  not  even  reproached  herself 
for  it,  though  she  supposed  she  would  later. 

The  sense  that  something  in  some  way  or  other  decisive 
was  going  to  happen  to-night,  quickened  her  pulse  as  she 
mounted,  along  with  the  last  of  their  guests  to  the  music 
room,  in  response  to  Paula's  message  that  Mr.  March  had 
come  and  that  the  "rehearsal"  was  about  to  begin.  She 
looked  about  eagerly  for  a  man  who  might  be  March  but 
could  not  discover  him  anywhere.  Was  he,  perhaps,  she 
absurdly  wondered,  sitting  once  more  under  the  piano? 

Novelli  drooped  over  the  keyboard.  LaChaise  was  half 
hidden  in  a  deep  chair  in  one  of  the  dormers.  Paula,  her 
back  to  the  little  audience,  stood  talking  to  Novelli.  Mary 
allowed  herself  a  faint  smile  over  the  expression  in  those 
faces  that  Paula  wouldn't  look  at.  The  half-concealed  im- 
patience, the  anticipatory  boredom,  showed  through  so 
•unfaltering  a  determination  to  do  and  express  to  the  end 
the  precisely  correct  thing.  Even  her  father's  anger  looked 
out  through  a  mask  like  that. 

LaChaise,  from  his  corner  said  something  in  French  that 
Mary  didn't  catch.  Novelli  straightened  his  back.  And  in 
that  instant  before  a  note  was  sounded,  Mary's  excitement 


STRINGENDO  79 

mounted  higher.  The  absorption  of  those  three  musicians, 
the  intensity  of  their  preoccupation,  told  her  that  the  some- 
thing she  had  expected  was  going  to  happen — now.  But 
she  did  not  know  that  it  was  going  to  happen  to  her. 

Long  ago  the  family  had  acquiesced  in  Mary's  assertion 
that  she  was  not  in  the  least  musical  and  in  her  stubborn 
refusal  to  "take"  anything,  even  the  most  elementary  course 
of  lessons  on  the  piano.  She  had  been  allowed  to  grow  up 
in  an  ignorance  almost  unique  in  these  days,  of  the  whole 
mystery  of  musical  notation  and  phraseology,  an  ignorance 
that  might  be  reckoned  the  equivalent  of  a  special  talent. 

Later,  indeed,  she  had  made  the  discovery— or  what 
would  have  been  a  discovery  if  she  had  fully  admitted  it  to 
herself — that  music  sometimes  exerted  a  special  power  over 
her  emotions.  Whether  it  was  a  certain  sort  of  music  that 
created  the  mood  or  a  certain  sort  of  mood  that  was  capable 
of  responding  to  music,  she  had  never  seriously  inquired. 
The  critical  jargon  of  the  wiseacres  always  irritated  her. 
She  supposed  it  meant  something  because  they  seemed  in- 
telligible to  each  other  but  she  rather  enjoyed  indulging  the 
presumption  that  it  did  not.  When  she  went  to  concerts, 
she  liked  to  go  alone,  or  at  least  to  be  let  alone,  to  sit  back 
passively  and  allow  the  variegated  tissue  of  sound  to  en- 
velop her  spirit  as  it  would.  If  it  bored  her,  as  it  fre- 
quently did,  there  was  no  harm  done,  no  pretense  to  make. 
If,  as  more  rarely  happened,  it  stole  somehow  into  complete 
possession,  floated  her  away  upon  strange  voyages,  she  was 
at  least  immune  from  analysis  and  inquisition  afterward. 

So  it  was  with  no  critical  expectancy  that  she  listened 
when  Novelli  began  to  play ;  indeed,  in  the  active  sense,  she 
did  not  listen  at  all.  She  forgot  to  be  amused  by  the 
composed  faces  about  her;  she  forgot,  presently,  whose 
music  it  was  and  whose  voice  she  heard.  What  she  felt  was 
a  disentanglement,  an  emergence  into  more  open,  wider 


80  MARY  WOLLASTON 

spaces, — cold  ethereal  spaces.  It  seemed,  though,  that  it 
was  her  own  mood  the  music  fitted  into,  rather  than  the 
other  way  about. 

She  heard  the  talk  that  followed  the  polite  rustle  of 
applause  at  the  first  intermission,  without  being  irritated  by 
it,  without  even  listening  to  what  it  meant,  though  here  and 
there  a  phrase  registered  itself  upon  her  ear.  Henry 
Craven's  "Very  modern,  of  course.  No  tonality  at  all,  not 
a  cadence  in  it,"  and  Charlotte  Avery's  "No  form  either. 
And  hardly  to  be  called  a  song.  A  tone  poem,  really,  with 
a  part  written  into  it  for  the  voice." 

The  music  began  again,  and  now  was  given  ungrudging 
credit  for  the  recreation  of  her  mood.  Only  its  admitted 
beauty  created  a  longing  which  it  did  not  serve  to  satisfy. 
The  cold  open  sky  with  its  mysterious  interstellar  spaces, 
the  flow  of  the  black  devouring  clouds,  the  reemergence  of 
the  immortal  Pleiades,  remote,  inhuman,  unaware,  brought 
no  tranquillity  but  only  a  forlorn  human  loneliness. 

On  that  note  it  ended,  but  Paula,  with  a  nod  to  Novelli, 
directed  him  to  go  straight  on  to  the  love  song.  The  two 
do  not  form  a  sequence  in  the  poem ;  indeed  the  love  song 
occurs  very  early  in  it  and  the  Burial  of  the  Stars  comes 
afterward,  nearly  at  the  end.  But  I  think,  as  March  did, 
that  Paula's  instinct  was  sound  in  using  the  unearthly 
Schubert-like  beauty  of  the  Burial  of  the  Stars  as  a  prelude 
to  the  purely  human  passion  of  the  love  song. 

It  is,  I  suppose,  one  of  the  supreme  lyric  expressions  in 
the  English  language  of  the  passion  of  love.  Furthermore, 
Whitman's  free  unmetered  swing,  the  glorious  length  of  his 
stride,  /ell  in  with  March's  rhythmic  idiom  as  though  they 
had  been  born  under  the  same  star. 

The  result  is  one  of  those  happy  marriages  so  rare  as  to 
be  almost  unique,  in  which  the  emotional  power  of  a  great 
song  is  enhanced  by  its  musical  setting,  and  where,  con- 


STRINGENDO  81 

versely,  a  great  piece  of  lyric  music  gains  rather  than  loses 
by  its  words. 

March  did  not  use  the  whole  poem.  His  setting  begins 
on  the  line  "Low  hangs  the  moon,"  and  ends  with  the 
"Hither,  my  love!  Here  I  am!  Here!"  Why  he  elected  not 
to  go  on  with  it,  I  don't  know.  Possibly,  because  his  own 
impulse  was  spent  before  Whitman's;  possibly,  because 
he  did  not  wish  to  impose  the  darker  melancholy  of  the 
latter  stanzas  upon  the  clear  ecstasy  of  that  last  call. 

It  lost  something,  of  course,  from  the  inadequacy  of  the 
piano  transcription,  for  it  was  conceived  and  written 
orchestrally.  Paula,  too,  has  given  finer  performances  of 
it; — indeed,  she  sang  it  better  a  little  later  that  same  eve- 
ning. But  spurred  as  she  was  by  the  knowledge  that  the 
composer  was  listening  to  it  and  by  her  determination  to 
win  a  victory  for  it,  she  flung  herself  into  it  with  all  the 
power  and  passion  she  had. 

I  doubt  whether  any  other  auditor  ever  is  more  com- 
pletely overwhelmed  by  it  than  Mary  was.  It  was  so  utterly 
her  own,  the  cry  of  it  so  verily  the  unacknowledged  cry  of 
her  own  heart,  that  the  successive  stanzas  buried  them- 
selves in  it  like  unerring  arrows.  The  intensity  of  its  climax 
was  more  poignant,  more  nearly  intolerable,  than  anything 
in  all  the  music  she  had  ever  heard.  Limp,  wet,  breathless, 
trembling  all  over,  she  sat  for  a  matter  of  minutes  after 
that  last  ineffable  yearning  note  had  died  away. 

There  was  a  certain  variety  in  the  emotions  of  the  rest 
of  the  audience,  but  they  met  on  common  ground  in 
the  feeling  of  not  knowing  where  to  look  or  what  to  say. 
Their  individualities  submerged  in  a  great  crowd,  they  might 
— most  of  them — have  allowed  themselves  to  be  carried 
away,  especially  if  they'd  come  in  the  expectation — founded 
on  the  experience  of  other  audiences — that  they  would  be 
carried  away.  But  to  sit  like  this,  all  very  much  aware  of 


82  MARY  WOLLASTON 

each  other  while  a  woman  they  knew,  the  wife  of  a  man  they 
had  long  known,  proclaimed  a  naked  passion  like  that,  was 
simply  painful.  What  they  didn't  know  you  see — there  was 
no  program  to  tell  them — was  whether  the  thing  was  in- 
spired or  merely  dreadful,  and  when  it  was  over  they  sat 
in  stony  despair,  waiting,  like  the  children  of  Israel,  for  a 
sign. 

It  was  LaChaise  who  broke  the  spell  by  crossing  the 
room  and  unceremoniously  displacing  Novell!  at  the  piano. 
He  turned  back  to  the  beginning  of  the  score  and  began 
reading  it,  at  first  silently,  then  humming  unintelligible 
orchestral  parts  as  he  was  able  to  infer  them  from  the  tran- 
scription; finally  with  noisy  outbursts  upon  the  piano,  to 
which  din  Novelli  contributed  with  one  hand  reached  down 
over  the  conductor's  shoulder.  Paula  standing  in  the  curve 
of  the  instrument,  her  elbows  on  the  lid,  followed  them 
from  her  copy  of  the  score.  It  got  to  the  audience  that 
an  alert  attitude  of  attention  was  no  longer  required  of 
them.  That  in  fact,  so  far  as  the  three  musicians  were  con- 
cerned, nothing  was  required  of  them,  not  even  silence.  As 
an  audience  they  ceased  to  exist.  They  were  dissolved  once 
more  into  their  social  elements  and  began  a  little  feverishly 
to  talk. 

The  realization  broke  over  Mary  with  the  intensity  of 
panic  that  some  one  of  them  might  speak  to  her.  She  rose 
blindly  and  slipped  out  into  the  hall,  but  even  there  she  did 
not  feel  safe.  Some  of  them,  any  of  them,  might  follow 
her.  She  wanted  to  hide.  There  was  a  small  room  adjoining 
the  studio — it  had  been  the  nurse's  bedroom  when  the  other 
had  been  the  nursery — and  its  door  now  stood  ajar.  She 
slipped  within  and  closed  it  very  softly  behind  her. 

Here  in  the  grateful  half-dark  she  was  safe  enough 
although  the  door  into  the  studio  was  also  part  way  open. 
There  was  nothing  in  here  but  lumber — an  old  settee,  a 
bookcase  full  of  discarded  volumes  from  the  library  and  an 


STRINGENDC  83 

overflow  of  Paula's  music.  No  one  would  think  of  looking 
for  her  in  here. 

But  as  she  turned  her  back  upon  the  door  that  she  had 
just  closed,  she  saw  that  some  one  was  here,  a  man  in  khaki 
sitting  on  the  edge  of  that  old  settee,  leaning  forward  a 
little,  his  hands  clasped  between  his  knees.  She  had  come  in 
so  quietly  he  had  not  heard  her. 

It  seemed  to  her  afterward  that  she  must  have  had  two 
simultaneous  and  contradictory  ideas  as  to  who  he  was. 
She  knew, — she  must  have  known,  instantly — that  he  was 
Anthony  March,  but  his  uniform  suggested  Rush  and  drew 
her  over  toward  him  just  as  though  she  had  actually  believed 
him  to  be  her  brother.  And  then  as  he  became  aware 
of  her  and  glanced  up,  Paula  in  the  other  room  began  sing- 
ing the  last  song  over  again,  her  great  broad  voice  submerg- 
ing the  buzz  of  talk  like  the  tide  rushing  in  over  a  flat. 
Without  a  word  Mary  dropped  down  beside  him  on  the 
settee. 

In  the  middle  of  a  phrase  the  music  stopped. 

"A  vous  le  tour!"  they  heard  LaChaise  say  to  Novelli. 
"Je  ne  suis  pas  assez  pianiste.  Maintenant!  Recommen- 
cons,  n'est-ce-pas  ?" 

The  song  resumed.    March's  frame  stiffened. 

"Oh  night!  do  I  not  see  my  love  fluttering  out  among  the 

breakers? 
What  is  that  little  black  thing  I  see  there  in  the  ivhite?" 

"Now  then,"  March  whispered.  "Quicker!  My  God, 
can't  they  pick  it  up?"  Like  an  echo  came  LaChaise's  "Plus 
vite!  Stringcndo,  jusque  au  bout!"  and  with  a  gasp  the 
composer  greeted  the  quickened  tempo.  Then  as  the  song 
swept  to  its  first  tempestuous  climax  he  clutched  Mary's 
arm.  That's  it,"  he  cried.  "Can't  you  see  that's  it?" 


84  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"Loud!  loud!  loud! 

Loud  I  call  to  you,  my  love! 

High  and  clear  I  shoot  my  voice  over  the  waves, 

Surely  you  must  know  wlw  is  here,  is  here, 

You  must  know  who  I  am,  my  love" 

He  let  go  her  arm.    The  song  went  on. 

"Low-hanging  moon! 

What  is  that  dusky  spot  in  your  brown  yellowf 

O  it  is  the  shape,  the  shape  of  my  mate! 

O  moon,  do  not  keep  me  from  her  any  longer." 

From  there,  without  interruption  it  swept  along  to  the 
end. 

It  was  during  the  ecstatic  pianissimo  just  before  the 
final  section  that  their  hands  clasped.  Which  of  them  first 
sought  the  contact  neither  of  them  knew  but  they  sat  linked 
like  that,  tingling,  breathless  during  the  lines : — 

".     .     .    somewhere  I  believe  I  heard  my  mate  responding 

to  me, 
So  faint  I  must  be  still,  be  still  to  listen, 

But  not  altogether  still,  for  then  she  might  not  come  imme- 
diately to  me." 

On  the  last  "Hither,  my  love !  Here  I  am !  Here !"  the 
clasp  tightened,  convulsively.  But  it  was  not  until  the  cir- 
cuit was  broken  that  the  spark  really  leaped  across  the  gap. 

There  was  no  applause  in  the  other  room  when  the  song 
ended  for  the  second  time,  but  it  won  a  clear  half  minute  of 
breathless  silence  before  the  eddies  of  talk  began  again. 
During  that  tight-stretched  moment  the  pair  upon  the  settee, 
their  hands  just  unclasped,  sat  motionless,  fully  aware  of 


STRINGENDO  85 

each  other  for  the  first  time,  almost  unendurably  aware, 
thrilling  with  the  just-arrived  sense  of  the  amazing  intimacy 
of  the  experience  they  had  shared.  Neither  of  them  was 
innocent  but  neither  had  ever  known  so  complete  a  fusion, 
of  his  identity  with  another  as  this  which  the  spell  of  his 
music  had  produced. 

They  sat  side  by  side  but  not  very  close,  not  so  close 
that  there  was  contact  anywhere  between  them  and  neither 
made  any  move  to  resume  it.  Both  were  trembling  uncon- 
trollably and  each  knew  that  the  other  was. 

The  hum  of  talk  in  the  other  room  rose  louder  and  finally 
became  articulate  in  Charlotte  Avery's  crisp,  "Good  night, 
my  dear  Paula,  we've  had  a  most  interesting  evening.  I  shall 
hope  to  hear  more  of  your  discovery.  And  see  him  too 
sometime  if  you  make  up  your  mind  to  exhibit  him." 

March  started  from  his  seat  at  that.  "Don't  make  any 
noise,"  Mary  whispered,  rising  too,  and  laying  a  detaining 
hand  on  him.  "Nobody  will  come  in  here.  They'll  all  go 
now.  We  must  wait." 

He  obeyed  tractably  enough,  only  turned  toward  her  now 
and  gazed  at  her  with  undissimulated  intensity ;  not,  though, 
as  if  speculating  who  she  might  be,  rather  as  if  wondering 
whether  she  were  really  there. 

"Don't  you  want  them  to  find  you,  either?"  he  asked. 

"N-not  after  that,"  she  stammered ;  and  added  instantly, 
"We  mustn't  talk." 

So  silent  once  more,  they  waited  while  the  late  audience 
defiled  in  irregular,  slow  moving  groups  down  the  hall 
toward  the  stairs.  Mary  distinguished  her  father's  voice,  her 
brother's,  her  aunt's,  all  taking  valiantly  just  the  right  social 
note.  They  were  covering  the  retreat  in  good  order.  And 
she  heard  Portia  Stanton  taking  her  husband  home.  But 
the  music  room  was  not  yet  deserted.  There  were  sounds 
of  relaxation  in  there,  the  striking  of  a  match,  the  sound 


86  MARY  WOLLASTON 

of  a  heavy  body — that  of  LaChaise,  probably — dropping  into 
an  easy  chair. 

"And  now,"  Mary  heard  him  say  to  Paula —  "Now  fetch 
out  your  composer.  Where  have  you  had  him  hidden  all 
this  while  ?" 

"He's  in  there.  I  was  just  waiting  until  they  were  really 
gone.  I'll  get  him  now,  though.  No,  sit  still;  I'd  rather, 
myself." 

March,  however,  didn't  move ;  not  even  when  they  could 
hear  Paula  coming  toward  the  door.  He  stood  gazing 
thoughtfully  at  Mary,  his  eyes  luminous  in  the  dark.  It 
occurred  to  her  that  the  conversation  in  the  other  room  had 
been  in  French  and  that  he  had  not  understood  it. 

"Oh,  go — quickly !"  she  had  just  time  to  breathe.  Then 
she  crowded  back,  close  against  the  partition  wall.  The 
door  opened  that  way,  so  that  when  Paula  flung  it  wide  it 
screened  her  a  little. 

The  singer  stood  there,  a  golden  glowing  thing  in  the 
light  she  had  brought  in  with  her.  "Where  are  you?"  she 
asked.  Then  she  came  up  to  March  and  took  him  by  the 
arms.  "Was  it  good?"  she  asked.  "Was  it — a  little — as 
you  meant  it  to  sound  ?" 

When  he  did  not  speak,  she  laughed, — a  rich  low  laugh 
that  had  a  hint  of  tears  in  it,  pulled  him  up  to  her  and 
kissed  his  cheek.  "You  don't  have  to  answer,  my  dear," 
she  said.  "Come  in  and  hear  what  LaChaise  has  got  to  say 
about  it." 

Without  effort,  irresistibly,  she  swept  him  along  with  her 
into  the  music  room. 

Mary,  when  they  were  gone,  let  herself  out  by  the  other 
door  as  softly  as  she  had  come  in.  She  fled  down  one  flight 
of  the  stairs  and  a  moment  later  had  locked  the  door  of  her 
own  room  behind  her.  She  switched  on  the  light,  gave  a 
ragged  laugh  at  Sir  Galahad ;  then  lay  down,  just  as  she 
was,  on  the  little  white  bed,  her  face  in  the  pillow,  and  cried. 


CHAPTER  VII 

NO  THOROUGHFARE 

IT  WAS  hours  later,  well  along  toward  one  o'clock  in  the 
morning  when  Rush  coming  into  his  room  saw  a  light 
under  the  door  communicating  with  his  sister's  and,  knock- 
ing, was  told  he  might  come  in. 

He  found  her  in  bed  for  the  night,  reclining  against  a 
stack  of  pillows  as  if  she  had  been  reading,  but  from  the 
way  she  blinked  at  the  softened  light  from  the  lamp  on  her 
night  table,  it  appeared  that  she  had  switched  it  on  only 
when  she  heard  him  coming.  She  might  have  been  crying 
though  she  looked  composed  enough  now ; — symmetrically 
composed,  indeed,  a  braid  over  each  shoulder,  her  hands 
folded,  her  legs  straight  down  the  middle  of  the  bed  making 
a  single  ridge  that  terminated  in  a  little  peak  where  her 
feet  stuck  up  (the  way  heroines  lie,  it  occurred  to  Rush, 
in  the  last  act  of  grand  operas,  when  they  are  dead)  and 
this  effect  was  enhanced  by  the  new-laundered  whiteness  of 
the  sheet,  neatly  folded  back  over  the  blankets  and  the  un- 
tumbled  pillows. 

"You  always  look  so  nice  and  clean,"  he  told  her,  and, 
forbearing  to  sit  on  the  edge  of  the  bed  as  a  pat  of  her  hand 
invited  him  to,  pulled  up  a  chair  instead.  It  was  going  to  be 
a  real  talk,  not  just  a  casual  good-night  chat. 

"We  were  wondering  what  had  become  of  you,"  he  said. 
"Poor  Graham  was  worried." 

"Graham!"  But  she  did  not  follow  that  up.  "I  decided 
we'd  had  temperament  enough  for  one  evening,"  she  ex- 
plained in  a  matter-of-fact  tone,  "so  when  I  saw  I  was 
going  to  explode  I  came  away  quietly  and  did  it  in  here. 
By  the  time  it  was  over  I  thought  I  might  as  well  go  to  bed." 

87 


88  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"It  doesn't  look  as  if  you'd  exploded  very  violently,"  he 
observed. 

"Oh,  I've  cleared  away  the  ruins,"  she  said.  "I  hate 
reminders  of  a  mess." 

It  was  like  her  exquisiteness  to  do  that  and  it  tightened 
his  throat  to  think  about  it.  He'd  have  liked  to  make  sure 
what  the  cause  of  the  explosion  had  been,  but  thought  he'd 
better  wait  a  while  for  that.  All  he  ventured  in  the  way  of 
sympathetic  approbation  was  to  reach  out  and  pat  the  ridge 
that  extended  down  the  middle  of  the  bed.  "It  certainly  has 
been  one  devil  of  an  evening,"  he  said. 

"I  suppose  it  has,"  she  agreed,  thoughtfully.  Then,  notic- 
ing that  this  had  rather  thrown  him  off  his  stride,  she  went 
on,  "Tell  me  all  that's  been  happening  since  I  ran  away. 
How  did  Paula  act  when  it  was  over  ?" 

"I  haven't  seen  her,"  he  said.  "She  never  came  down 
at  all.  Of  course  it  must  have  been — well,  in  a  way,  a 
devil  of  an  evening  for  her,  too.  Though  I  can't  believe 
our  being  there  cramped  her  style  very  much  in  singing  those 
songs.  If  it  did,  I'd  hate  to  think  what  she  would  have 
done  if  we  hadn't  been.  I  hope  March  liked  his  own  stuff. 
He  was  there  all  the  while,  you  know.  She  must  have  had 
him  tucked  away  in  that  little  old  room  of  Annie's  that 
opened  off  the  nursery.  Somewhere  anyhow,  because  long 
after  every  one  else  had  gone,  he  came  down-stairs  with  the 
Frenchman.  I  got  one  surprise  just  then  all  right.  He's 
a  private  soldier,  did  you  know  that?  Just  a  plain  dough- 
boy." 

"Overseas?"  Mary  asked. 

"As  far  as  Bordeaux,  with  the  Eighty-sixth.  Saxaphone 
player  with  one  of  the  artillery  bands.  In  a  way  I'm  rather 
glad  of  it.  That  that's  what  he  turns  out  to  be,  I  mean." 

"Why?"  Mary  made  the  word  rather  crisply. 

"Oh,  well,"  Rush  explained  uncomfortably,  "you  know; 


NO  THOROUGHFARE  89 

what  it  had  begun  to  look  like.  Paula  quarreling  with 
father  about  him  and  not  going  down  to  dinner;  and — 
cutting  loose  like  that  over  his  music.  But  of  course  there 
couldn't  be  anything  of  that  sort — with  a  chap  like  that." 

"What  is  the  lowest  military  rank,"  Mary  inquired,  "that 
you  think  Paula  could  fall  in  love  with  ?" 

The  satirical  import  of  her  question  was  not  lost  upon 
him  but  he  held  his  ground.  "It  may  sound  snobbish  but 
it's  hue  just  the  same,"  he  insisted.  "A  doughboy's  a  dough- 
boy, and  Paula  wouldn't  get  mixed  up  with  one — any  more 
than  you  would." 

There  was  a  silence  after  that 

"His  music  didn't  sound  to  me  like  doughboy  music," 
Mary  observed  at  last.  "Nor  his  going  to  Walt  Whitman  to 
get  the  words." 

"Was  that  Walt  Whitman?  It  sounded  to  me  as  if 
he  was  making  it  up  as  he  went  along."  He  had  the  grace 
to  grin  at  himself  over  that  admission,  however.  "Oh,  well," 
he  concluded,  "Paula's  all  right  anyhow.  I  think  she's — 
wonderful,  myself.  Only  poor  old  dad!  He  is  a  peach, 
Mary.  It's  funny  how  differently  I  remember  him.  He 
acted  like  one  real  sport  to-night." 

"Afterward,  you  mean."  Mary,  it  seemed,  would  not 
have  characterized  her  father's  behavior  earlier  in  the  eve- 
ning in  just  that  way.  "Tell  me  all  about  it.  Only  reach 
me  a  cigarette  first." 

He  obeyed  the  latter  injunction  with  an  air  of  protest. 
"It's  the  only  thing  you  do  that  I  wish  you  didn't,"  he  said. 

"Why?  Do  you  think  it's  bad  for  me?" 

He  wouldn't  commit  himself  by  answering  that.  The 
retort  it  offered  her  was  obvious.  "It  doesn't  seem  like 
you,"  he  explained. 

"Very  well,"  she  said,  taking  a  light  from  his  match, 
"then  I  shall  go  on  just  to  keep  you  reminded  that  I'm  not 


90  MARY  WOLLASTON 

plaster  of  Paris.  I  like  to  have  somebody  around  who 
doesn't  think  that." 

"Father  doesn't,"  Rush  asserted,  and  got  so  eager  a 
look  of  inquiry  from  her  that  he  regretted  having  nothing 
very  substantial  to  satisfy  it  with.  "Oh,  down  there  in  the 
hall,"  he  said,  "after  everybody  but  March  and  the  French- 
man had  gone.  Aunt  Lucile  began  fussing  about  you.  She 
was  rather  up  in  the  air,  anyway.  She'd  done  the  non- 
chalant, all  right, — overdone  it  a  bit  in  fact — as  long  as  there 
was  any  one  around  to  play  up  to.  But  when  we  had  got 
rid  of  the  Novellis — they  were  the  last — she  did  a  balloon 
ascension.  She  had  a  fit  or  two  in  general  and  then  came 
round  to  wondering  about  you.  Wanted  to  know  when 
we'd  last  seen  you — what  could  have  happened  to  you, — 
that  sort  of  thing.  I'd  been  having  a  little  talk  with  Graham 
so  I  supposed  I  knew.  But  of  course  I  said  nothing  about 
that." 

He  was  looking  rather  fixedly  away  from  her  and  so 
missed  her  frown  of  incomprehension.  "Well,  but  father  ?" 
she  asked. 

It  had  been  coming  over  him  that  what  his  father  had 
said  was  not  just  what  he  wanted  to  report  to  Mary.  Not 
while  she  felt  about  him  as  she  had  confessed,  down  there 
in  New  York,  she  did.  But  he  had  let  himself  in  for  it. 

"Why,  it  wasn't  much,"  he  said ;  "just  that  nothing  could 
have  happened  to  you ;  that  you  wouldn't  'fall  off  anything 
and  break.'  What  you  said  about  plaster  of  Paris  made  me 
think  of  it.  He  was  only  trying  to  get  Aunt  Lucile  quieted 
down." 

"While  he  had  Paula  on  his  mind,  he  didn't  want  to  be 
bothered  about  me.  That's  natural  enough,  of  course." 
Her  dry  brittle  tone  was  anything  but  reassuring.  Still 
without  looking  at  her,  he  hurried  on. 

"Well,  it  is  natural  that  he  should  be  worried  about 


NO  THOROUGHFARE  91 

Paula.  I  know  how  I'd  feel  about  a  thing  like  that.  It 
was  rather  weird  while  we  waited  after  Aunt  Lucile  went 
up  to  bed  for  those  two  to  come  down.  Old  Nat  was  fussing 
around  the  drawing-room,  shutting  up  and  putting  things 
to  rights.  Dad  sent  him  to  bed,  too,  told  him  we'd  do  the 
locking  up  ourselves.  I  got  the  idea  that  he  was  expecting 
Paula  to  come  sailing  down,  with  March,  you  know,  and 
perhaps  didn't  want  any  one  around.  So  I  made  a  bluff  of 
going  to  bed  myself.  But  he  told  me  to  stick;  said  we'd 
settle  down  and  have  a  smoke  presently.  I  don't  know  how 
long  it  was  before  we  heard  LaChaise  and  March  coming 
but  it  seemed  a  deuce  of  a  while. 

"Dad  was  right  on  the  job  then,  calm  as  a  May  morningv 
He  introduced  March  and  me  and  said  something  polite 
about  his  music,  never  a  word  about  his  having  been  hiding 
all  the  evening. 

"Then  LaChaise  spoke  to  dad  in  French.  Said  there 
was  some  business  he  wanted  to  talk  with  him  about  and 
that  he'd  like  an  appointment.  I  wasn't  sure  that  dad  quite 
got  him  so  I  crashed  in  and  interpreted. 

"Dad  reached  out  and  took  hold  of  me,  as  if  he  was 
sort  of  glad  that  I  was  there,  and  told  me  to  tell  Mr.  La- 
Chaise  that  we  had  plenty  of  time  right  now,  and  if  there 
was  anything  to  discuss  the  sooner  we  got  at  it,  the  better. 

"I  handed  that  on  in  French — I  tried  not  to  lose  any  of 
the  kick  out  of  it — and  while  I  was  doing  that  March  made 
a  move  to  go. 

"Dad  told  him  not  to.  I  wish  you  could  have  been  there. 
I  remember  he  said  after  inviting  him  to  stay,  'I  imagine  you 
are  as  much  concerned  in  this  as  any  one.'  It  didn't  faze 
March  though.  He  said  that  he  didn't  believe  that  what  Mr. 
LaChaise  had  to  say  concerned  him.  Then  he  made  a  stiff 
little  bow  for  good  night  and  went  off  down  the  hall  to  get 
his  hat.  Oh,  that  wasn't  like  a  doughboy,  I'll  admit.  I  went 


92  MARY  WOLLASTON 

to  the  door  with  him  and  we  made  a  little  conversation  there 
for  a  minute  or  two  just  to — take  off  the  edge.  That's  when 
I  found  out  where  he'd  been. 

"Father  had  taken  LaChaise  into  the  drawing-room 
when  I  got  back  but  I  don't  believe  either  of  them  had  said 
three  words.  They  were  waiting  for  me.  Dad  led  off  by 
asking  what  he  thought  of  March,  and  LaChaise  told  him, 
though  you  could  see  that  wasn't  what  was  on  his  mind. 
He  said  March  had  a  very  strong  and  original  talent  and 
that  he  believed  he  had  operas  in  him.  There  was  one 
about  finished  that  he  was  going  to  look  at  to-morrow.  Then 
he  pulled  up  short  and  said  it  was  Paula  he  wanted  to  talk 
about. 

"Dad  caught  that  all  right  without  waiting  for  me  to 
translate  it.  What  he  wanted  to  get  at,  right  at  the  jump 
off,  was  whether  Paula  knew  LaChaise  had  come  down  to* 
talk  about  her.  Was  he  to  consider  Mr.  LaChaise  her  emis- 
sary? I  took  a  chance  on  emissaire  for  that  and  it  worked 
all  right. 

"Well,  the  Frenchman  said,  as  cool  as  you  please,  that 
he  was.  Said  he  wouldn't  have  ventured  to  intrude  other- 
wise:— and  dad  froze  to  ice  right  there.  But  LaChaise 
went  on  and  spoke  his  piece  just  the  same.  He  said  he'd 
come  to-night  to  verify  the  enthusiastic  reports  he  had  heard 
of  her  singing  but  that  she  had  outdone  them  all.  He  said 
the  voice  itself  was  unusual,  of  great  power  and  of  beautiful 
quality,  adequate  in  range  for  anything  that  could  be  ex- 
pected of  her.  But  he  said  that  was  only  the  beginning  of 
it.  The  important  things  were  that  she  was  a  real  musician 
in  the  first  place  and  a  woman  with  real  passions  in  the 
second. 

"I  didn't  know  whether  to  translate  that  to  dad  or  to 
shut  the  Frenchman  up  myself  right  there.  I  would  have 
liked  to  take  a  punch  at  him.  But,  of  course,  you're  nothing 


NO  THOROUGHFARE  9J 

but  a  part  of  the  machinery  when  you  are  interpreting,  so 
I  handed  it  on,  without  looking  at  dad.  All  he  said  was, 
'We'll  get  to  the  point,  if  you  please,  Monsieur.' 

"LaChaise  understood  that  without  waiting  for  me.  He 
said  he  had  had  no  hesitation  in  offering  Paula  a  contract 
to  sing  the  leading  dramatic  soprano  roles  at  Ravinia 
this  summer  and  that  he  had  told  her  if  it  worked  any- 
where near  as  well  as  he  expected  it  to  there  was  no  doubt 
of  her  getting  a  good  Metropolitan  engagement  next  season. 
He  finished  up  by  saying  he  had  had  to  ask  her  to  make  a 
decision  as  soon  as  possible  because  he  was  at  that  moment 
negotiating  with  some  one  else  who  couldn't  be  put  off  very 
long. 

"D.ad  asked  then  whether  Paula  had  given  him  an 
answer  to-night.  LaChaise  told  him  she  had  accepted — 
subject  to  his  obtaining  dad's  consent.  Then  he  finished 
up  with  a  full-dress  bow.  'That  is  the  point  you  have  asked 
me  to  come  to,  Monsieur,'  he  said. 

"Dad  never  said  a  word  for  a  minute.  You  could  see 
it  must  have  been  ghastly  for  him.  I  guess  La- 
Chaise  must  have  seen  it  himself,  for  he  went  on  and  tried 
to  soften  it  down  a  bit.  Said  he  didn't  want  to  seem  to 
brusque  the  affair.  All  he  wanted  to  ask  dad  to-night  was 
that  he  should  agree  to  consider  the  matter,  bearing  in  mind 
that  a  real  artist  like  ma-dame,  his  wife,  couldn't  be  kept 
shut  up  in  a  brass  tower  indefinitely. 

"Dad  cut  him  off  rather  short  on  that.  He  said  that 
from  a  legal  or  business  point  of  view,  which  was  all  that 
could  possibly  concern  LaChaise,  his  consent  wasn't  neces- 
sary. If  his  wife  signed  a  contract  he  would  put  no  obstacles 
in  the  way  of  her  fulfilling  it.  Beyond  that  he  had  obviously 
nothing  to  say. 

"Well,  that  was  about  all.  They  both  put  on  all  the 
trimmings  saying  good  night  to  each  other  and  LaChaise 


94  MARY  WOLLASTON 

thanked  me  very  handsomely  for  interpreting.  I  chucked 
him  into  his  overcoat  and  let  him  out  the  front  door. — And 
bolted  it  after  him,  you  bet !  Lord,  but  I  hated  to  go  back  to 
dad  after  that. 

"I  needn't  have  worried  though.  When  we  sat  down 
for  our  smoke  in  the  library,  it  was  exactly  as  if  nothing 
had  happened.  I'd  have  been  tearing  my  hair  but  old  dad 
...  He  certainly  is  a  peach." 

Rush  paused  there  for  some  comment  from  her  and  when 
she  made  none,  looked  around  at  her.  Her  hands  were 
lightly  clasped  across  her  breast,  her  eyelids  nearly  closed. 
Save  for  her  barely  perceptible  breathing,  she  lay  dead  still. 

"Have  I  talked  you  to  sleep  ?"  he  asked. 

"No,"  she  said,  "I  was  thinking  what  a  mixed-up  thing 
life  is.  The  way  you  can't  help  liking  and  admiring  the 
people  you  wish  you  could  hate  and  hating  and  hurting  the 
ones  you  love."  Then  her  eyes  came  open  with  a  smile  and 
she  held  out  a  hand  toward  him.  "You  don't  have  to  answer 
that.  It's  the  sort  of  silly  thing  people  say  when  they  have 
been  drinking  gin.  What  I  was  really  wondering  was 
whether  there  will  be  anything  about  Mr.  March's  opera  in 
that  contract  Paula  signs  with  La  Chaise  ?" 

This  startled  him.  "I  never  thought  of  that,"  he 
answered.  "Do  you  suppose  that's  it?  Oh,  it  can't  be! 
She  wouldn't  chuck  dad  for  that  doughboy  piano  tuner. 
Not  Paula !" 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Mary.  "She  wouldn't  do  that.  It 
wouldn't  look  to  her  like  that,  anyhow.  She's  got  enough, 
don't  you  see,  for  everybody ;  for  dad  and — and  the  dough- 
boy as  well.  Father  wouldn't  have  any  less,  if  he  could  just 
make  up  his  mind  that  he  didn't  have  to  have  it  all.  And  as 
for  the  other,  why,  it  might  be  the  greatest  thing  that  could 
possibly  happen  to  him; — being  in  love  with  Paula  and 


NO  THOROUGHFARE  95 

writing  operas  for  her  and  having  her  sing  them  the  way 
she  sang  those  songs  to-night.  I  suppose  that's  what  a 
genius  needs.  And  you  couldn't  blame  her  exactly.  At 
least  there  always  have  been  people  like  that  and  the  world 
hasn't  blamed  them — no  matter  how  moral  it  pretends  to  be. 
It's  the  other  sort  of  people,  the  ones  who  won't  take  any- 
thing unless  they  can  have  it  all  and  who  can't  give  anything 
unless  they  can  give  it  all — those  that  haven't  but  one  thing 
to  give — that  are — no  good." 

He  didn't  more  than  half  understand  her,  which  was 
fortunate,  since  he  was  rather  horrified  as  it  was.  He  put  it 
down  broadly  as  the  same  sort  of  nervous  crisis  that  he 
had  encountered  in  New  York,  a  sort  of  hypersensitiveness 
due  to  the  strain  of  war  work — the  thing  he  had  amused  her 
by  speaking  of  as  shell-shock. 

"I  think  perhaps  I  know  what  has  upset  you  to-night," 
he  said  uncomfortably.  "At  least  Graham  told  me  about  it." 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  puzzled  frown.  It  was  the 
third  time  that  he  had  brought  up  the  Stannard  boy's  name. 
What  in  the  world  .  .  .? 

"He's  terribly  distressed  about  it,"  Rush  went  on.  In 
his  embarrassment  he  wasn't  looking  at  her  and  she  com- 
posed her  face.  "He  didn't  mean  to  shock  you  or — or  offend 
you.  He  says  he  gave  you  reason  enough  to  be  offended, 
but  only  because  you  didn't  understand.  He  says  he  has 
always — cared  for  you  a  lot.  He  said  he  thought  you  were 
the  most — well,  about  the  most  perfect  thing  in  the  world. 
Only  to-night  he  said  he  got  carried  off  his  feet  and  went 
further  than  he  had  any  right  to.  And  he  simply  can't 
bear  to  have  you  think  that  he  meant  anything — disre- 
spectful. He  felt  he  had  to  apologize  to  you  before  he 
went  home,  but  you  didn't  come  down  so  finally  he  told  me 
about  it  and  made  me  promise  that  I'd  tell  you  to-night.  Of 


96  MARY  WOLLASTON 

course,  I  don't  know  what  he  did,"  Rush  concluded,  "but  I 
can  tell  you  this.  Graham  Stannard's  a  white  man;  they 
don't  make  them  whiter  than  that." 

Her  reply,  although  it  was  unequivocally  to  the  effect 
that  it  was  all  right — Graham  needn't  worry — failed,  alto- 
gether, to  reassure  him.  Was  this,  after  all,  he  wondered, 
what  she  had  exploded  about?  She  prevented  further  in- 
quiry, however,  by  an  abrupt  change  of  the  subject,  demand- 
ing to  be  told  what  it  was  that  he  and  his  father,  all  these 
hours,  had  been  talking  about. 

He  took  up  the  topic  with  unforced  enthusiasm.  He 
had  been  surprised  and  deeply  touched  over  the  discovery 
that  his  father  did  not  require  to  be  argued  out  of  the  pro- 
ject either  to  send  him  back  to  Harvard  or  to  start  him  in 
at  the  bottom  in  Martin  Whitney's  bank.  "If  he'd  just  been 
through  it  all  himself,  he  couldn't  have  understood  any 
better  how  I  feel  about  it." 

"Did  you  tell  him  about  the  farm?"    Mary  asked. 

This  was  an  idea  of  Graham's  which  she  and  Rush  had 
been  developing  with  him  during  the  half  hour  in  the  draw- 
ing-room before  they  had  gone  down  to  dinner.  Young 
Stannard,  during  his  two  years  on  a  destroyer,  had  con- 
ceived an  extraordinary  longing  for  Mother  Earth,  and  had 
filled  in  his  dream  in  tolerably  complete  detail.  What  he 
wanted  was  an  out-of-door  life  which  should  not  altogether 
deprive  him  of  the  pleasures  of  an  urban  existence ;  and  he 
accomplished  this  paradox  by  premising  a  farm  within  con- 
venient motoring  distance  of  Chicago,  on  one  of  the  hard 
roads.  Somewhere  in  the  dairy  belt,  out  Elgin  way  perhaps. 
You  could  have  wonderful  week-end  house  parties  in  a 
place  like  that,  even  in  winter,  with  skiing  and  skating  for 
amusements,  and  in  summer  it  would  be  simply  gorgeous. 
And,  of  course,  one  could  always  run  into  town  for  the 
night  if  there  was  anything  particular  to  come  for. 


NO  THOROUGHFARE  97 

Mary  had  volunteered  to  keep  house  for  them  and  they 
had  talked  a  lot  of  amusing  nonsense  as  to  what  her  duties 
should  be.  Graham,  too,  had  a  kid  sister,  only  seventeen, 
who  fitted  admirably  into  the  picture.  She  loved  the  country, 
simply  lived  in  riding  breeches  and  rode  like  a  man — a  sight 
better  than  most  men — and  drove  a  car  like  a  young  devil. 
There  was  nothing,  in  fact,  she  couldn't  do. 

Graham  was  altogether  serious  about  it.  He  had  been 
scouting  around  during  the  fortnight  since  his  return  and 
had  his  eyes  on  two  or  three  places  that  might  do.  There 
was  one  four-hundred-acre  property  that  was  altogether 
desirable,  ideal  in  fact,  except  for  the  one  painful  particular 
that  the  cost  of  it  was  just  about  twice  as  much  as  Graham's 
father  was  willing  to  run  to.  But  if  Rush  would  go  in  with 
him  they  need  seek  no  .further.  The  thing  was  as  good  as 
settled. 

"I  did  talk  to  father  about  it,"  Rush  now  told  Mary. 
"The  thing  is  a  real  idea.  Graham  and  I  talked  seriously 
about  it  while  we  were  smoking  before  we  went  up-stairs. 
The  scheme  is  to  run  a  dairy,  hog  and  poultry  combination 
on  a  manufacturing  basis  and  then  sell  our  whole  product 
direct  to  two  or  three  customers  in  town,  one  or  two  of 
the  clubs — perhaps  a  hotel.  Deliver  by  motor  truck  every 
day,  you  see,  and  leave  the  middleman  out  entirely.  It's 
the  only  way  to  beat  the  game.  Father  saw  it  like  a  shot. 
He  said  it  would  take  a  lot  of  money,  of  course,  but  he 
thought  he  could  manage  my  share." 

Mary  relaxed  just  perceptibly  deeper  in  the  pillows  and 
her  eyelids  drooped  again.  "It's  getting  awfully  late,"  Rush 
said;  "don't  you  want  to  go  to  sleep?"  But  he  needed  no 
urging  to  go  on  when  she  asked  him  to  tell  her  all  about 
it,  and  for  another  half  hour  he  elaborated  the  plan. 

He  was  still  breezing  along  on  the  full  tide  of  the  idea, 
when,  happening  to  glance  at  her  little  traveling  clock,  he 


98  MARY  WOLLASTON 

pulled  himself  up  short,  took  away  her  extra  pillows, 
switched  off  her  night  lamp  and  ordered  her  to  go  to  sleep 
at  once.  Her  apparent  docility  did  not  altogether  satisfy 
him  and  two  or  three  times  during  the  hour  before  he 
himself  fell  asleep,  he  sat  up  to  look  under  the  door  and  see 
whether  she  had  turned  the  light  on  again. 

He  was  right  about  that,  of  course.  The  enforced  calm 
Mary  had  imposed  upon  herself  as  a  penance  for  the  tem- 
pest of  emotion  she  had  indulged — she  had  lain  without 
moving,  hardly  a  finger,  from  the  time  she  remade  that 
bed  and  crept  back  into  it  until  hearing  Rush  coming  she 
switched  on  the  light — had  had  a  sort  of  hypnotic  effect 
upon  her.  So  long  as  her  body  did  not  move,  it  ceased  to 
exist  altogether  and  set  her  spirit  free,  like  a  pale-winged 
luna  moth  from  its  chrysalis  to  adventure  into  the  night. 
The  light  it  kept  fluttering  back  to  was  that  blinding  expe- 
rience with  March  while  the  music  of  his  song  had  surged 
through  her  and  her  hand  had  been  crushed  in  his. 

Rush's  coming  in  had  brought  her  back  to  that  tired 
still  body  of  hers  again;  his  voice  soothed,  his  presence 
comforted  her ;  at  his  occasional  touch  she  was  able  to  relax. 
(If  only  there  were  some  one  who  loved  her,  who  would 
hold  her  tight — tight — )  She  hoped  he  would  go  on  talking 
to  her ;  on  and  on.  Because  while  he  talked  she  could  man- 
age to  stop  thinking — by  the  squirrel-like  process  of  storing 
away  all  the  ideas  he  was  suggesting  to  her  for  consideration 
later. 

But  when  the  respite  was  over  and  she  lay  back  in  the 
dark  again,  she  made  no  effort  to  deny  admission  to  the 
thoughts  that  came  crowding  so  thickly.  She  must  think; 
she  must,  before  the  ordeal  of  the  next  breakfast  tabk,  have 
taken  thought.  She  must  have  decided  if  not  what  she 
should  do,  at  least  what  she  could  hope  for.  She  was  much 
clearer  and  saner  for  the  little  interlude  with  Rush. 


NO  THOROUGHFARE  99 

Suppose  in  the  first  place; — suppose  that  Paula's  re- 
bellion was  serious.  Suppose  the  Tower  of  Brass  violated 
and  the  Princess  carried  away  by  the  jinn  or  upon  the 
magic  carpet — whichever  it  was — to  a  world  where  none  of 
them  could  follow  her.  Suppose  John  Wollaston  bereft 
again.  Would  not  Mary's  old  place  be  hers  once  more? 
Would  not  everything  be  just  as  it  had  been  during  those 
two  years  before  her  father  went  to  Vienna  ? 

But  some  instinct  in  her  revolted  utterly  at  that.  It  was 
an  mstinct  that  she  could  not  completely  reason  out.  But 
she  knew  that  if  such  a  calamity  befell,  her  old  place  would 
not  exist  or  would  be  intolerable  if  it  did. 

Suppose  again : — suppose  that  Paula's  rebellion  could  be 
somehow  frustrated.  Would  it  be  possible  to  save  Paula 
for  her  father  by  saving  March  from  Paula  ?  In  plain  words, 
by  diverting  him  from  Paula  to  herself. 

That  was  a  disgustingly  vulgar  way  of  putting  it.  But 
wasn't  it  what  she  meant?  And  if  she  couldn't  be  honest 
with  her  own  thoughts  .  .  .  Well  then,  were  her 
powers  of  attraction  great  enough,  even  if  they  were  con- 
sciously exerted  to  the  utmost,  to  outpull  Paula's  with  a 
musician,  with  a  man  whose  songs  she  could  sing  as  she 
had  sung  to-night  ? 

That  moment  in  Annie's  old  bedroom  off  the  nursery 
supplied  concretely  enough  the  answer  to  her  question. 
They  had  been  soul  to  soul  in  there,  they  two.  There  was 
no  language  to  describe  the  intimacy  of  it,  except  perhaps 
the  hackneyed  phrases  of  the  wedding  service  which  had 
lost  all  their  meaning.  And  while  they  had  stood  together 
in  the  half  dark,  Paula  had  opened  the  door,  bringing  the 
light  in  with  her.  She  had  taken  him  confidently  in  her 
strong  hands  and  kissed  him  and  led  him  away  without  one 
hesitating  backward  thought. 

And  the  truth  seemed  clear  enough,  incandescent,  now 


100  MARY  WOLLASTON 

she  looked  back  at  it,  that  it  was  Paula  who  had  possessed 
him  all  along.  That  moment  which  she  had  called  her  own 
had  been  Paula's.  Mary  had  got  it  because  she  had  hap- 
pened to  come  in  and  sit  down  beside  him.  She  had,  as  it 
were,  picked  his  pocket.  She  stood  convicted  the  moment 
the  rightful  owner  appeared.  That  was  how  much  her 
chance  of  "saving"  March  from  Paula  amounted  to. 

What  a  hypocrite  she  had  been  to  use  that  phrase  even 
in  her  thoughts.  Save  him  from  Paula,  indeed!  Paula 
could  give  him,  even  if  she  gave  only  the  half  loaf,  all  he 
needed.  She  could  inspire  his  genius,  float  it  along  on  the 
broad  current  of  her  own  energy.  Compared  to  that,  what 
could  Mary  give?  What  would  it,  her  one  possible  gift, 
amount  to? 

She  pulled  herself  up  short.  Wallowing  again!  No 
more  of  that.  She'd  leave  March  alone,  and  on  that  resolu- 
tion she'd  stop  thinking  about  him.  She'd  think  about  Rush 
and  Graham  and  the  farm. 

Graham !  They  didn't  come,  Rush  had  said,  any  whiter 
than  that.  Probably  he  was  right  about  it.  It  was  a  won- 
derful quality,  that  sort  of  whiteness.  What  was  it  he  had 
done  (she  didn't  even  remember!)  that  had  caused  him 
such  bitter  self-reproach?  You  couldn't  help  liking  him. 
It  ought  not  to  be  hard  to  fall  sufficiently  in  love  with  him. 
And  out  on  a  farm  ...  A  farmer's  wife  certainly  had 
enough  to  do  to  keep  her  from  growing  restless.  With  a 
lot  of  children,  four  to  half  a  dozen, — no  one  could  call 
that  a  worthless  life. 

And  it  was  practicable.  With  an  even  break  in  the 
luck,  she  could  accomplish  the  whole  of  it.  A  man  like 
Graham  she  could  make  happy.  Her  one  gift  would  be 
enough  for  him ;  all  he'd  want.  What  was  it  he  had  told 
Rush  to-night?  That  he  had  always  thought  her  the  most 
perfect  .  .  . 


NO  THOROUGHFARE  101 

At  that,  appallingly,  she  was  seized  in  the  cold  grip  of 
an  unforeseen  realization.  She  couldn't  marry  a  boy  like 
that — she  couldn't  marry  any  man  who  regarded  her  like 
that — without  first  telling  him  what  she  was ;  what  she  was 
not!  She  would  have  to  make  clear  to  him — there  was 
simply  no  escape  from  that — the  nature  of  the  thing  that 
had  happened  in  that  tiny  flat  in  New  York  where  she  had 
lived  alone  so  long. 

It  was  possible,  of  course,  oh,  more  than  that,  probable 
even,  that  after  hearing  the  story  he  would  still  want  to 
marry  her.  That  he  might  regard  her,  no  matter  what  she 
said,  as  having  been  wronged ;  her  innocence,  though  once 
taken  advantage  of  by  a  scoundrel,  intact.  His  love  would 
be  reenforced  by  pity.  He'd  think  of  nothing,  in  the  stress 
of  that  moment,  but  the  desire  to  protect  her,  to  provide 
a  fortress  for  her. 

But  would  she  dare,  on  these  terms,  marry  him,  or  any 
other  man  for  that  matter,  no  matter  how  ardently  he  pro- 
fessed forgiveness?  It  wouldn't  be  until  after  the  mar- 
riage was  an  accomplished  thing,  its  first  desires  satisfied, 
its  first  tension  relaxed,  that  the  story  of  her  adventure 
would  begin  to  loom  black  and  thunderous  over  the  horizon 
of  his  mind.  (Who  was  the  man?  How  could  it  have 
happened?  In  what  mood  of  madness  could  she  have  done 
such  a  thing?  Might  it  ever, — when  might  it  not — happen 
again?)  No!  Marriage  was  difficult  enough  without  being 
handicapped  additionally  by  a  perennial  misgiving  like 
that.  No  thoroughfare  again! 

She  started  once  more  around  the  circle,  but  one  can 
not  keep  at  that  sort  of  thing  forever.  About  sunrise  she 
fell  asleep. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   DUMB    PRINCESS 

NONE  of  his  own  family  knew  quite  what  to  make  of 
Anthony  March.  All  of  them  but  his  mother  disap- 
proved of  him,  on  more  or  less  mutually  contradictory 
grounds.  Disapproved  of  him  more  than  they  did  of  one 
another,  though  he  occupied  a  sort  of  middle  ground  between 
them.  It  is  a  possible  explanation  to  the  paradox  that  each 
of  them  regarded  him  as  a  potential  ally  and  so  spent  more 
time  trying  to  change  his  ways,  scolding  at  him,  pointing  out 
his  derelictions  and  lost  opportunities,  than  it  was  worth 
while  spending  on  the  others  who  were  hopeless. 

I  shall  be  a  little  more  intelligible,  perhaps,  if  I  tell  you 
briefly  who  they  were.  The  father,  David  March,  and 
Eveline,  his  wife,  were  New  Englanders.  They  both  came, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  from  within  ten  miles  of  Glastonbury, 
Connecticut,  though  they  didn't  discover  this  fact  until  after 
they'd  met  a  number  of  times  in  the  social  and  religious 
activities  of  the  Moody  Institute.  The  lives  of  both  had 
been  woven  in  the  somber  colors  of  Evangelical  religion. 
With  him  this  ran  close  to  fanaticism  and  served  as  an 
outlet  for  a  very  intense  emotional  life.  She  was  not  highly 
energized  enough  to  go  to  extremes  in  anything,  but  she 
acquiesced  in  all  his  beliefs  and  practises,  made  him  in  short, 
a  perfectly  dutiful  wife  according  to  the  Miltonian  precept, 
"He  for  God  only,  she  for  God  in  him." 

Back  in  New  England  she  probably  would  not  have 
married  him  for  she  was  a  cut  or  more  above  him  socially, 
the  played-out  end  of  a  very  fine  line,  as  her  beautiful  speech 
would  have  made  evident  to  any  sensitive  ear.  But  in 
Chicago,  the  disheveled,  terrifying  Chicago  of  the  roaring 

102 


THE  DUMB  PRINCESS  103 

eighties,  to  all  intents  and  purposes  alone,  clinging  pre- 
cariously to  a  school-teacher's  job  which  she  had  no  special 
equipment  for,  she  put  up  only  the  weakest  resistance  to 
David  March's  determination  that  she  should  be  his  wife. 

He  was  a  skilled  artisan,  a  stringer  and  chipper  in  a 
piano  factory  (chipping,  if  you  care  to  be  told,  is  the  tun- 
ing a  piano  gets  before  its  action  is  put  in).  One  would 
hardly  have  predicted  then,  considering  the  man's  energy 
and  intelligence,  that  he  would  remain  just  that,  go  on 
working  at  the  same  bench  for  thirty-five  years.  But,  as 
I  have  said,  his  energy  found  its  main  outlet  in  emotional 
religion. 

Their  first  child,  born  in  1886,  was  a  girl  whom  they 
named  Sarah.  Anthony  came  two  years  later  and  for  twelve 
years  there  were  no  more.  Then  came  the  late  baby,  whom 
they  appropriately  named  Benjamin  and  allowed  a  some- 
what milder  bringing  up  than  the  iron  rule  the  elder  ones 
had  been  subjected  to. 

It  was  the  dearest  wish  of  David's  life  to  make  a  preacher 
of  Anthony  and  he  must  have  got  by  way  of  answers  to  his 
prayers,  signs  which  reconciled  him  to  the  sheer  impossi- 
bility of  this  project.  The  boy's  passion  for  music  manifested 
itself  very  early  and  with  this  David  compromised  by  train- 
ing him  for  the  higher  reaches  of  his  own  craft.  He  got 
employment  for  Anthony  in  the  piano  factory  for  a  year  or 
two  after  his  graduation  from  high  school  and  then  sent 
him  on  for  a  liberal  two  years  in  a  school  in  Boston  where 
the  best  possible  instruction  in  piano  tuning  was  to  be  had. 

Sarah  was  half-way  through  high  school  when  her 
brother  Benjamin  was  born  and  for  two  years  after  she 
graduated,  her  mother's  ill  health,  the  familiar  breakdown 
of  the  middle  forties,  kept  her  at  home.  Then  she  defied 
her  father  and  took  a  job  in  a  down-town  office.  What  he 
objected  to,  of  course,  was  not  her  going  to  work  but  the 


104  MARY  WOLLASTON 

use  she  made  of  the  independence  with  which  self -support 
provided  her.  The  quarrel  never  came  to  a  real  break 
though  often  enough  it  looked  like  doing  so,  and  except  for 
the  brief  period  of  her  marriage  Sarah  always  lived  at  home. 

When  Anthony  came  back  from  Boston,  he  revolted,  too. 
He  had  not  been  a  prodigal;  indeed,  during  his  second 
year  in  the  East,  he  had  in  one  way  or  another,  earned  his 
own  living  and  he  had  learned  even  beyond  his  father's 
hopes  to  tune  pianos.  But  he  did  it  at  an  incredibly  small  ex- 
pense in  time  and  energy.  What  his  heart  went  into  during 
those  two  years  was  the  study  of  musical  theory  and  com- 
position, and,  thanks  to  a  special  aptitude  which  rose  to  the 
pitch  of  genius,  he  managed  to  make  the  comparatively 
meager  training  he  could  get  in  so  short  a  time,  suffice  to 
give  him  the  technical  equipment  he  needed. 

He  came  home  armed,  too,  with  a  discovery.  The  dis- 
covery that  a  man  not  enslaved  by  a  possessive  sense,  a  man 
whose  self-respect  is  not  dependent  upon  the  number  of 
things  he  owns,  a  man  able  therefore  to  thumb  his  nose  at 
all  the  maxims  of  success,  occupies  really  a  very  strong 
position. 

He  didn't  like  the  factory,  though  he  gave  it  what  he 
considered  a  fair  trial.  He  didn't  like  the  way  they  tuned 
pianos  in  a  factory.  The  dead  level  of  mechanical  perfec- 
tion which  they  insisted  upon  was  a  stupid  affront  to  his 
ear.  And,  of  course,  the  strict  regimentation  of  life  at 
home,  the,  once  more,  dead  level  of  the  plateau  upon  which 
life  was  supposed  to  be  lived,  was  distasteful  to  one  with  a 
streak  of  the  nomad  and  the  adventurer  in  him. 

Thanks  to  his  discovery  he  was  able  to  construct  an 
alternative  to  a  life  like  that.  A  skilful  piano  tuner  could 
earn  what  money  he  needed  anywhere  and  could  earn 
enough  in  a  diligent  week  to  set  him  free,  his  simple  wants 
provided  for,  for  the  rest  of  the  month. 


THE  DUMB  PRINCESS  105 

But  even  a  wanderer  needs  a  base,  a  point  of  departure 
for  his  wanderings,  and  his  father's  house  could  not  be  made 
to  serve  that  purpose,  so  Anthony  domiciled  himself,  after  a 
long  quest,  in  the  half  story  above  a  little  grocery  just  off 
North  LaSalle  Street  and  not  far  from  the  river. 

It  happened  when  Anthony  had  been  living  there  a  year 
or  more  that  the  grocer,  with  whom  he  was  on  the  friend- 
liest of  terms,  got,  temporarily,  into  straits  at  precisely  the 
time  that  Anthony  had  three  hundred  dollars.  He  had  won 
a  prize  of  that  amount  offered  by  a  society  for  the  encour- 
agement of  literature  for  the  minor  orchestral  instruments, 
with  a  concerto  for  the  French  horn.  The  grocer  offered  his 
note  for  it,  but  Anthony  thought  of  something  better.  He 
bought  his  room.  It  was  to  be  his  to  live  in,  rent  free,  for 
as  long  as  time  endured. 

He  took  a  childlike  pleasure  in  this  lair  of  his.  It 
accumulated  his  miscellaneous  treasures  like  a  small  boy's 
pocket.  He  made  a  mystery  of  it.  He  never  gave  it  as 
his  address.  Not  even  his  family  knew  where  it  was,  nor, 
more  than  vaguely,  of  its  existence.  The  address  he  had 
given  Paula  was  the  one  he  gave  every  one  else,  his  father's 
house  out  on  the  northwest  side,  just  off  Fullerton  Avenue. 
This  room,  in  a  sense  seldom  attained,  was  his  own.  When 
he  came  back  from  France,  the  day  Lucile  saw  him  sitting 
on  the  bench  in  the  park,  he  found  it  exactly — save  for  a 
heavy  coating  of  dust — as  he  had  left  it,  in  1917,  when  he 
went  down  to  Camp  Grant. 

A  good  philosophy,  so  John  Wollaston  with  a  touch  of 
envy  had  admitted — if  you  can  make  it  work.  Where  it 
breaks  down  with  most  young  men  who  set  out  so  valiantly 
with  it,  is  the  point  where  one  sees  the  only  girl  in  the 
world  and  recognizes  the  imperious  necessity  of  winning  her, 
of  holding  out  lures  for  her,  of  surrounding  her,  once  won, 
with  the  setting  her  superlative  worth  demands.  That  this 


106  MARY  WOLLASTON 

did  not  happen  to  Anthony  March  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  young  woman  he — not  so  much  saw  as  gradually  per- 
ceived, was  his  sister  Sarah's  friend,  Jennie  MacArthur. 

Independence  had  been  forced  upon  Jennie  so  early  that 
she  never  was  called  upon  to  decide  whether  she  liked  it 
or  not.  She  had  an  inquiring  mind — perhaps  experimental 
would  be  the  better  word  for  it — abundant  self-confidence 
and  a  good  stiff  backbone.  It  was  easy  to  make  the  mistake 
of  thinking  her  hard.  She  was  not  a  pretty  woman,  with 
her  sandy  hair  and  rather  striking  freckles,  but  she  was 
well  formed,  she  dressed  always  with  that  crisp  cleanli- 
ness which  is  the  extravagant  standard  of  young  women 
who  work  in  good  offices,  and  her  voice  had  an  attractive 
timbre. 

To  Sarah  March  (who,  having  fought  for  independence, 
was  a  little  at  a  loss  what  to  do  with  it)  Jennie's  experience 
and  her  rather  interesting  range  of  friends  were  a  God- 
send. It  was  at  one  of  Jennie's  parties  in  the  tiny  pair  of 
rooms  where  she  lived  alone  that  Sarah  met  Walter  Davis, 
a  mechanical  draftsman  by  day  and  an  ardent  young  Social- 
ist by  night,  whom  she  afterward  married. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  home  which  Sarah  was  some- 
times rather  dubious  about  the  advantage  of  possessing, 
was  to  Jennie  a  delightful  place  to  be  a  familiar  visitor  in. 
She  liked  old  David,  who  was  a  surprisingly  charming  person 
when  he  had  no  authority  over  you,  she  liked  Mrs.  March, 
she  adored  little  Ben — young  Ben  he  was  now  rapidly  grow- 
ing up  to  be— and  finally,  she  began  taking  an  interest  which 
eventually  outweighed  all  the  rest,  in  the  family  black  sheep, 
Anthony. 

The  intimacy  between  them  which  began  around  the 
time  of  Sarah's  marriage  continued  intermittently  for  nearly 
four  years.  It  had  not,  indeed,  been  definitely  broken  off 
when  he  went  into  the  army. 


THE  DUMB  PRINCESS  107 

When  the  attraction  faded  as  it  had  definitely  begun  to 
do  some  months  before  he  went  to  Camp  Grant,  it  left  their 
friendship  unimpaired,  enriched  on  the  contrary.  He  could 
talk  to  her  more  easily,  confide  his  thoughts  to  her  more 
freely  than  to  any  one  else  he  knew. 

This  ability  to  be  confided  in  and  depended  upon  was 
one  of  her  special  talents.  She  had  emerged,  years  before, 
from  the  crowded  stenographers'  room  in  a  big  engineering 
concern  into  the  private  office  of  the  chief.  He  was  an  erratic 
genius,  brilliant,  irritable,  exacting,  tireless,  all  but  impos- 
sible to  maintain  any  consistent  relation  with  but  one  of 
bitter  enmity.  He  had  about  made  up  his  mind  that  a  fresh 
stenographer  every  morning  was  all  he  could  hope  for,  when 
Jennie  became  his  Scheherazade.  By  the  time  the  war 
broke  out  she  was  as  indispensable  to  him  as  his  hands.  He 
had  made  her  an  officer  of  the  company  and  paid  her  a 
salary  of  six  thousand  dollars  a  year,  but  she  went  on  re- 
membering his  engagements,  writing  his  letters  and  soothing 
the  outraged  feelings  of  his  clients  just  as  she  had  done  in 
humbler  days.  She  was,  in  the  good,  old-fashioned  sense, 
his  better  half.  Her  amusement  was  the  stock  market  and 
she  played  it  cannily  and  with  considerable  success  with 
his  rather  diabolic  encouragement. 

She  was  in  New  York  when  March  got  home,  and  he 
saw  her  for  the  first  time  since  his  return  at  his  father's 
house  on  a  Sunday  morning  more  than  a  fortnight  after  the 
evening  at  the  Wollastons'  when  Paula  had  sung  his  songs. 

It  was  his  first  appearance  anywhere  since  the  afternoon 
in  Novelli's  studio  when  he  had  shown  his  opera  to  LaChaise 
and  Paula.  It  had  been  agreed  among  them  that  with 
certain  important  changes,  it  would  make  an  admirable 
vehicle  for  Paula's  return  to  the  operatic  stage,  and  being1 
a  small  affair  from  the  producer's  point  of  view,  involving 
only  one  interior  set,  would  be  practicable  for  production 


108  MARY  WOLLASTON 

during  the  summer  at  Ravinia  in  case  the  project  for  Paula's 
singing  there  went  through.  March  had  agreed  to  the 
changes  and  withdrawn  into  his  stronghold  over  the  grocery 
store  with  a  determination  not  more  than  to  come  up  for  air 
until  he  had  worried  the  thing  into  the  shape  they  wanted. 

He  didn't  know  it  was  Sunday — having  attributed  the 
peacefulness  he  found  pervading  Fullerton  Avenue  to  his 
own  good  conscience,  a  purely  subjective  phenomenon — 
until  in  the  parlor  of  his  father's  house  the  sight  of  his 
brother  Ben  at  the  piano  playing  a  soundless  tune  upon  the 
tops  of  the  keys,  brought  it  home  to  him.  When  he  inquired 
for  the  rest  of  the  family,  he  learned  that  they  were  up-stairs 
getting  ready  for  church. 

"I  hope,"  he  said,  with  a  grin  at  his  younger  brother, 
"that  you  aren't  suffering  from  that  old  hebdomadal  sore 
throat  of  yours." 

"No,  it's  all  right,"  Ben  said,  declining  though  to  be 
amused.  "I've  got  a  gentleman's  agreement  with  Sarah. 
Every  other  Sunday.  Father's  well  enough  satisfied  now 
if  he  gets  one  of  us.  When  they're  all  gone,  I  can  slip 
out  and  buy  a  Sunday  paper — jazz  up  the  piano — have  a 
regular  orgy.  Every  other  Sunday!  Gee,  but  it's  fierce!" 

"It's  pathetic,"  March  said.  "Poor  father !  I  don't  sup- 
pose there's  any  help  for  it." 

What  struck  him  was  the  pitiful  futility  of  his  father's 
persistence  in  trying  to  impose  his  ways,  his  beliefs,  his 
will,  upon  one  so  rapidly  growing  into  full  independence. 
The  only  sanction  he  had  was  a  tradition  daily  becoming 
more  fragile.  He  was  in  for  the  bitterness  of  another  dis- 
appointment. That  was  what  there  was  no  help  for. 

Naturally  young  Ben  didn't  interpret  it  this  way.  "You're 
a  nice  one  to  talk  like  that,"  he  said  resentfully.  "You've 
always  done  whatever  you  pleased." 


THE  DUMB  PRINCESS  109 

"There's  nothing  to  prevent  you  from  doing  the  same 
thing  if  you  look  at  it  that  way,"  Anthony  observed. 
"You've  got  a  job  a  man  could  live  on,  haven't  you?" 

"Live  on  ?    Fifteen  dollars  a  week  ?" 

And  it  may  be  admitted  that  Ben's  sense  of  outrage  had 
some  foundation.  Years  ago  he  had  made  up  his  small 
young  mind  that  he  would  never  work  in  the  factory  and 
he  settled  the  question  by  getting  himself  a  job  in  one  of 
the  piano  salesrooms  on  Wabash  Avenue.  He  wasn't  pre- 
cisely a  salesman  yet,  he  might  perhaps  have  been  spoken  of 
by  an  unkind  person  as  an  office  boy.  But  it  was  essential 
that  he  look  like  a  salesman  and  act  like  a  salesman,  even  in 
the  matter  of  going  to  lunch.  Some  day  soon,  he  was  going 
to  succeed  in  completing  a  sale  before  some  one  else  came 
around  and  took  it  out  of  his  hands,  and  he  could  then  strike 
for  a  regular  commission. 

In  the  meantime  with  shoes  and  socks  and  shirts  and 
neckties  costing  what  they  did,  the  suggestion  that  his  salary 
was  adequate  to  provide  a  bachelor's  independence  was  fan- 
tastic and  infuriating. 

"Yes,"  he  grumbed,  "if  I  wanted  to  live  in  a  rat  hole 
and  look  like  a  tramp." 

"My  rat  hole  isn't  so  bad  to  live  in,"  Anthony  said,  "but 
I'd  be  sorry  to  think  I  looked  like  a  tramp.  Do  I,  for  a 
fact  ?  I  haven't  had  this  suit  on  since  I  went  into  the  army 
but  I  thought  it  looked  all  right." 

"Oh,  there's  a  big  rip  in  the  back  of  the  shoulder  where 
the  padding  is  sticking  through  and  your  cuffs  are  frayed 
and  your  necktie's  got  a  hole  worn  plumb  through  it  where 
the  wing  of  your  collar  rubs.  You  don't  look  like  a  tramp, 
of  course,  because  you  look  clean  and  decent.  It  would  be 
all  right  if  you  had  to  be  like  that.  Only  it's  all  so  darned 
unnecessary.  You  could  make  good  money  if  you'd  only 


110  MARY  WOLLASTON 

live  like  a  regular  person.  Every  day  or  two,  somebody 
telephones  to  know  if  you  aren't  home  and  if  there  isn't 
some  way  we  can  get  word  to  you,  and  it's  kind  of  humiliat- 
ing to  have  to  say  there  isn't; — that  we  don't  know  where 
you  are,  haven't  seen  you  for  a  week, — things  like  that  Of 
course,  it's  none  of  my  business,  but  I'm  trying  to  pull  out 
of  this.  I'd  like  to  be  somebody  someday  and  it  would  be 
a  darn  sight  easier  if  you  were  trying  to  pull  the  same  way 
instead  of  queering  us  all  the  time." 

"Yes,  I  know,"  Anthony  said  thoughtfully.  "But  then 
there's  Sarah  on  the  other  hand  who  can't  forgive  me  for 
not  putting  on  a  red  necktie  and  going  Bolshevik.  She'd 
have  me  put  in  my  time  trying  to  upset  the  bourgeois  apple- 
cart altogether." 

Ben  grinned.  "You  ought  to  have  heard  her  go  on  about 
the  limousine  that  came  and  left  a  note  for  you  the  other 
day.  Lady  inside,  chauffeur  in  a  big  fur  coat.  He  came  up 
to  the  door  and  asked  whether  you  were  home  and  left  the 
note  when  Sarah  said  you  weren't.  Last  Thursday,  I  think 
that  was,  just  before  supper.  It's  over  there  on  the  mantel, 
I  guess.  Sarah's  afraid  you're  going  to  turn  into  a  little 
brother  of  the  rich." 

"You  tell  Sarah,"  Anthony  said  off  the  top  of  his  mind, 
the  rest  of  it  obviously  engaged  with  the  note, — "you  tell 
Sarah  there's  nothing  capitalistic  about  this.  This  is  from 
her  Doctor  Wollaston's  wife.  Certainly  he  earns  his  living 
if  anybody  does." 

"Do  they  want  their  piano  tuned  again  ?"  Ben  asked. 

"They  don't  mention  it.  They  want  to  know  if  I'll  come 
to  lunch  to-day.  I'm  going  to  telephone  to  see  if  the  in- 
vitation has  expired." 

"Good  lord!"  said  Ben,  "what  have  you  got  to  wear? 
You  can't  go  looking  like  that !"  He  meant  to  go  into  par- 


THE  DUMB  PRINCESS  111 

ticulars  when  his  brother  came  back  from  the  telephone. 
But  by  that  time  he  had  something  of  nearer  concern  to  him- 
self to  think  about.  Anthony  found  him  staring  out  the 
window  with  an  expression  of  the  liveliest  dismay. 

"Oh,  look  who's  here!"  he  said.    "Can  you  beat  it?" 

Anthony  looked  and  saw  a  little  Ford  coupe  pulling  up 
to  the  curb  in  front  of  the  house ;  looked  more  closely  at  the 
person  at  the  wheel  and  blinked. 

"Jennie  MacArthur!  I  thought  she  was  still  in  New 
York.  But  what's  she  doing  in  that  car  ?" 

"Oh,  she  bought  it  last  fall,"  Ben  said.  "She's  getting 
rich.  But  can't  you  see  what  it  means?  She's  coming 
around  to  see  Sarah  and  that'll  give  Sarah  an  excuse  for 
staying  home  from  church.  And  that  means  that  /'//  have 
to  go." 

"Don't  worry  about  that,"  Anthony  said,  catching  up  his 
hat.  "I'll  head  her  off.  Tell  mother  I'll  be  around  to-night." 

He  intercepted  Jennie  at  the  car  door,  caught  both  her 
hands  and  pressed  them  tight,  pushed  her  back  into  her  seat 
as  he  did  so,  climbed  in  and  sat  down  beside  her.  "I'm  sup- 
posed to  be  saving  Ben  from  the  horrible  fate  of  getting 
dragged  to  church  when  it's  really  Sarah's  Sunday,"  he 
said.  "If  you'll  just  drive  me  around  the  corner,  I'll  explain." 

But  she  prevented  him  with  a  little  laugh  when  he  would 
have  begun.  "This  is  good  enough  for  me.  I  don't  want 
any  explanation." 

"It's  pretty  good,"  he  agreed.  "Stop  a  minute  now  we're 
safely  around  the  corner  and  let  me  have  a  look  at  you." 

She  obeyed  him,  literally,  pulling  up  to  the  curb  again, 
accorded  him  the  look  he  wanted  and  took,  meanwhile,  one 
of  her  own  at  him.  Neither  of  them,  however,  seemed  to 
find  just  the  phrase  in  which  to  announce  the  result  of  this 
scrutiny.  She  started  on  again  presently  and  he  relaxed 


112  MARY  WOLLASTON 

against  the  cushion.  "This  is  more  like  being  home  again 
than  anything  that's  happened  yet,"  he  said.  "Are  we  to 
have  a  real  visit  ?" 

She  was  free  till  lunch  she  told  him,  and  he,  after  saying; 
"Well,  that's  something,"  admitted  his  own  engagement. 
"However,  that's  the  best  part  of  two  hours.  The  thing  is 
not  to  waste  any  of  it." 

Naturally  enough  they  wasted  a  good  deal  of  it.  They 
talked  about  the  little  car  they  were  riding  in,  how  she  had 
learned  to  drive,  why  she  had  bought  it ;  how  Mr.  Ferris,  her 
boss,  had  said  he  wouldn't  be  any  good  for  the  day  after 
coming  down-town  in  a  tight  jammed  elevated  train  and 
how,  having  tried  the  new  method  of  transportation  she  had 
agreed  with  him ;  how  it  was  as  easy  to  run  as  a  typewriter. 

A  few  minutes  more  of  that,  she  thought,  and  she'd  begin 
telling  Ford  jokes,  so  she  wrenched  around  to  a  new  subject 
and  asked  him  how  much  he'd  seen  of  France ;  what  he 
thought  of  the  French ;  how  long  he'd  been  home ;  and  what 
it  seemed  like  to  be  in  civilian  clothes  again ; — topics  upon 
which  he  enlarged  as  well  as  he  could.  She  had  driven 
meanwhile,  north  to  Diversey  Boulevard  and  had  then  turned 
west,  around  the  ring.  They  were  out  in  the  middle  of  Gar- 
field  Park  when  she  said  after  a  hard,  tight  silence,  "Isn't 
this  perfectly  ghastly  ?" 

"It's  awful,"  he  agreed.  "I  don't  know  what's  the  matter 
with  us — or  whose  fault  it  is.  But  I  certainly  didn't  mean 
to  get  started  like  this." 

"I  expect  that's  it,"  she  told  him.  "Haven't  you  been 
trying  to  treat  me  just  exactly  right?  Make  me  feel 
perfectly  comfortable?  Haven't  you  been — being  tactful, 
with  all  your  might,  ever  since  we  started  ?  Because  I  have." 

"Well,  then,  for  heaven's  sake,"  he  said,  "let's  quit! 
Quit  trying  so  infernally  hard,  I  mean.  It's  too  nice  a 


THE  DUMB  PRINCESS  113 

morning  to  spoil.  You  know,  if  the  sun  manages  to  come 
out,  as  it's  trying  to,  it  will  be  a  very  handsome  April  day." 

"I  don't  think  talking  about  the  weather  is  much  of  an 
improvement,"  she  commented.  "Tony,  let's  give  it  up,  for 
to-day  I  mean.  We'll  try  again  sometime  from  a  fresh  start. 
This  is  perfectly  hopeless." 

He  tried  to  pretend  that  she  didn't  mean  it  but  she  made 
it  clear  even  with  a  touch  of  asperity  that  she  did.  "Oh,  all 
right,"  he  growled  and  reached  for  the  handle  to  the  door. 

"Don't  be  silly,"  she  commanded.  "I'm  not  going  to 
leave  you  out  here  in  the  wilds  of  Garfield  Park.  Where  do 
you  want  to  go  ?  Is  it  too  early  for  your  lunch  ?" 

"Mrs.  Wollaston  told  me  to  come  at  one,"  he  said. 
"You  aren't  supposed  to  be  ahead  of  time  for  a  thing  like 
that,  are  you?  Anyhow,  I've  got  to  go  back  to  my  room 
first." 

She  caught  up  the  name.  "Sarah  told  me  about  your 
going  there.  First  to  tune  the  piano  and  then  the  evening 
when  she  sang  your  songs.  Sarah's  quite  eloquent  about  it." 

"Yes,  poor  Sarah,  I  know.  Ben  was  quoting  her  this 
morning.  However,  that  won't  make  the  least  difference 
with  what  I'm  going  to  do." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  ?"  she  asked. 

"Why,  I  suppose,"  he  said,  "that  I'm  going  to  do  what 
people  speak  of  as  settling  down.  What  they  mean  by  that 
is  taking  an  interest  in  consequences — more  of  an  interest 
in  what  things  lead  to  than  in  what  they  are.  Well,  that's 
what  I'm  at  now." 

"That's  a  change,  all  right,  for  you,"  she  said. 

He  agreed  with  her.  "I  knew  when  it  happened,"  fie 
added.  "It  happened  when  I  heard  Paula  Carresford  sing 
one  of  my  songs.  Do  you  remember  the  story  that  used 
to  be  in  the  school  reader  about  the  tiger  that  tasted  blood 


114  MARY  WOLLASTON 

and  ate  up  the  princess  ?  You  know,  Jennie,  it's  practically 
true  that  up  to  that  night  I'd  never  heard  any  of  my  music 
at  all — except  mutilated  fragments  of  it  as  I  played  it  myself. 
And  I'll  tell  you  it  was  a  staggering  experience.  The 
queerest  experience  I  ever  had  in  my  life,  too.  I'll  tell  you 
about  that  sometime.  But  I  changed  right  there,  just  the 
way  the  tiger  did.  I  don't  happen  to  want  a  fur  overcoat 
nor  an  automobile  nor  an  apartment  on  the  Drive.  I  honestly 
don't  want  them.  They  aren't  a  part  of  my  dreams — never 
were.  But  I  do  want  to  hear  my  own  music.  I  want  to 
hear  it  done  for  all  it's  worth.  I  want  to  hear  orchestras 
play  it  and  singers  as  good  as  Paula  Carresford  sing  it.  And 
in  order  to  do  that  I've  got  to  look  ahead  a  little.  I've  got 
to  stop  doing  always  exactly  as  I  damned  please.  I've  got 
to  do  things  because  somebody  besides  myself  wants  them 
done." 

"Have  you  got  something  like  that  to  do  to-day — with  an 
eye  to  the  consequences?"  she  asked. 

He  looked  sharply  around  at  her.  She  was  very  intent 
on  her  driving  just  then.  "That's  a  remarkably  good  guess 
in  a  way,"  he  said.  "I  dread  going  to  that  house  to  lunch. 
A  month  ago  I'd  have  refused — or  pretended  I  hadn't  got 
the  invitation  until  too  late.  And  I'd  have  pretended  to  my- 
self that  it  was  because  I  didn't  care  to  play  the  social  game ; 
didn't  want  to  take  on  obligations  of  a  kind  I  couldn't  meet. 
But  now  I've  told  Mrs.  Wollaston  I'd  come,  I  know  the  real 
reason  why  I  don't  want  to. 

"I  said  just  now  I  didn't  want  a  fur  overcoat  nor  an 
automobile,  and  that's  eighty  per  cent.  true.  And  yet,  there's 
a  crawly  little  snob  inside  me  that's  in  a  panic  right  now 
because  I  haven't  got  proper  clothes  to  wear  and  because 
I'm  going  to  have  to  sit  down  in  front  of  a  lot  of  funny 
shaped  forks  that  I  don't  know  the  special  uses  of. 

"Oh,  there's  more  to  it  than  that  of  course.    It's  rather  a 


THE  DUMB  PRINCESS  115 

cross-grained  situation.  Wollaston  doesn't  like  me.  He 
thinks  I'm  responsible  for  his  wife's  having  kicked  over  the 
traces  and  signed  up  to  sing  at  Ravinia  this  summer.  In  a 
way,  I  suppose  I  am.  She's  planning  to  use  that  opera  of 
mine,  you  remember, — The  Outcry  we  called  it — for  a  nov- 
elty, provided  they  like  the  way  I've  padded  up  her  part. 
The  big  role  in  it  is  really  for  the  baritone,  of  course. 
That's  what  I've  been  slaving  over  for  the  last  two  weeks. 
If  she  makes  a  hit  with  it,  she'll  take  it  to  the  Metropolitan 
next  winter.  Of  course,  there's  no  reason  in  God's  world 
why  she  shouldn't  do  that  if  she  can  get  away  with  it.  She 
hasn't  any  children  to  look  after;  she  told  me  she  didn't  even 
keep  house  for  her  husband.  All  the  same  he  regards  me 
as  a  sort  of  potential  homewrecker." 

"You  can't  quite  blame  him  for  that,  can  you  ?"  Jennie 
suggested.  "If  you  began  reading  a  story  about  a  beautiful 
young  opera  singer  who  left  her  husband  to  go  back  on 
the  stage  again  and  sing  an  opera  by  a  musical  genius  she'd 
discovered,  wouldn't  you  expect  them  to  fall  in  love  with 
each  other?" 

"That  shows  what  nonsense  stories  are,"  he  said.  "That 
couldn't  happen  to  us  in  a  thousand  years.  She's  beautiful, 
and  kindly,  and  affectionate.  She's  got  temperament  enough 
to  blow  the  cork  out  of  any  bottle  you  tried  to  hold  it  down 
in.  But  I  couldn't  fall  in  love  with  her  if  I  tried.  It 
doesn't  happen  on  that  basis.  Besides  which,  it's  my  belief 
that  she's  altogether  in  love  with  her  husband.  All  the  same, 
she's  taken  me  up.  She  means  to  push  me  for  all  she's 
worth  and  let  her  husband  like  it  or  lump  it  as  he  pleases. 
She's  got  some  plans,  I  don't  know  just  what,  for  showing 
me  off  to  one  or  two  of  the  'right'  people  to-day.  You  can 
imagine  what  it  will  be  like,  can't  you  ?" 

"I  should  think  it  would  be  rather  good  fun — that  sort 
of  game,"  she  commented. 


116  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"That's  where  the  forks  come  in,"  he  said.  "And  not 
having  a  proper  coat.  That  sort  of  social  skill  is  the  suit 
of  armor  those  people  wear.  I've  got  to  go  back  to  my 
room  and  sew  up  the  rip  Ben  told  me  about  and  trim  my 
cuffs  and  try  to  tie  my  necktie  so  that  the  worn-out  spots 
won't  show — and  make  them  do." 

It  was  but  a  few  minutes  later — they  had  been  silent 
ones — that  she  stopped  her  car  in  front  of  the  little  grocery 
store  where  the  rickety  outside  stair  led  up  to  his  door. 

"I'll  come  in  with  you  and  sew  up  the  rip  in  your  coat," 
she  said. 

She  wouldn't  have  made  that  offer,  indeed  would  hardly 
have  driven  him  up  to  his  own  door,  if  she  had  not  been 
a  young  woman  with  steady  nerves  and  a  level  head,  and  an 
abundant  confidence  in  both.  Because  that  dingy  little 
wooden  building  with  its  outside  stair  to  his  attic,  was  the 
nucleus  of  memories  that  had  by  no  means  lost  their  poig- 
nancy. It  was  not,  after  all,  so  many  years  ago  that  she 
had  mounted  that  stair  for  the  first  time,  and  it  couldn't 
be  considered  strange  that  her  heart  quickened  a  little  as 
she  climbed  it  now. 

The  room  startled  her  by  being  so  utterly  unchanged. 
Not  only  the  major  articles  in  it ;  the  stove,  the  iron  bed,  the 
deal  table  he  wrote  at,  the  carpenter's  bench,  the  half  in- 
vented musical  typewriter  that  he  had  once  attempted  to 
convert  an  old  square  piano  into,  the  hollow-backed  easy 
chair, — but  the  quite  minor  and  casual  trifles  as  well.  On 
top  of  the  set  of  home-made  shelves  that  served  for  his 
music  and  his  books  was  a  sort  of  still-life  composed  of  a 
meerschaum  pipe  with  a  broken  stem  and  an  empty  goblet 
of  pressed  glass,  standing  upon  a  yellow  paper-covered  copy 
of  Anatole  France's  Thais,  that  had  been  just  like  that  the 
last  time  she  was  here.  She  had  stuck  a  bunch  of  sweet 


THE  DUMB  PRINCESS  117 

peas  she  was  wearing  into  that  goblet.  It  made  an  uncannily 
short  bridge  to  the  past,  a  trivial  reminder  like  that. 

Evidently  he  felt  it,  too.  Perhaps  he  had  followed 
her  glance  toward  that  dusty  shelf  corner.  Because,  a  mo- 
ment after  he  had  shut  the  door  behind  them,  opened  a 
window  and  taken  a  look  at  the  fire,  he  came  hesitantly  and 
a  little  awkwardly  up  to  her  and  took  her  by  the  shoulders 
as  if  to  draw  her  into  an  embrace.  He  was  very  gentle 
about  it. 

Also  he  was  ludicrously  tentative.  If  she'd  wanted  to 
let  herself  go  she  could  have  laughed  rather  hysterically 
about  that.  She  disengaged  herself  from  his  hands,  deci- 
sively, indeed,  yet  without  any  air  of  pique. 

"Oh,  no,  my  dear,"  she  said.  "Take  off  your  coat  and 
let  me  get  to  work.  Where's  your  sewing  kit  ?" 

He  produced  it  instantly  (the  room  was  not  in  real 
disorder ;  it  only  looked  like  that  to  one  who  did  not  under- 
stand its  system),  gave  her  his  coat,  wandered  restlessly 
about  for  a  few  minutes  and  presently  came  to  rest  at  the 
deal  table  where  he  had  spent  the  greater  part  of  the  last 
fortnight,  turning  over,  discontentedly,  the  sheets  of  score 
paper  he  had  left  there. 

Over  her  sewing  she  let  her  mind  run  free,  forgetting 
this  present  Sunday  with  its  problems,  mixing  a  pleasant 
amalgam  of  the  past.  She  wasn't  heartbroken,  you  know, 
hardly  regretful.  She  had  life  about  as  she  wanted  it.  She 
never  had  been  in  love  with  March  in  the  accepted  meaning 
of  the  phrase — she  had  never  even  thought  she  was — and  it 
is  altogether  probable  that  if  she  had  found  him  eager  to 
resume  the  old  relation,  she  would  have  felt  a  certain  reluc- 
tance about  taking  it  up  again.  Life  changed  with  the 
years  and  some  of  its  old  urgencies  quieted  down — for  the 
time  anyhow.  Still  the  night  when  she  had  worn  those 


118  MARY  WOLLASTON 

sweet  peas  remained  a  fragrant  memory.  She  was  recalled 
to  the  present  by  the  violent  gesture  he  made  over  the  score 
on  his  work  table. 

'This  damned  thing  is  rotten,"  he  said  with  angry  con- 
viction. "I  knew  it, — I  knew  it  while  I  wrote  it.  It  may  be 
what  they  want,  but  it's  rotten.  Straight  into  the  stove  is 
where  it  ought  to  go." 

"Is  that  what  you're  writing  for  Mrs.  Wollaston?"  she 
asked. 

He  nodded.  "I  was  trying  to  make  up  my  mind  whether 
to  take  this  with  me  to-day  or  not.  If  she's  the  musician  I 
think  she  is,  she'll  tell  me  to  carry  it  out  to  the  ash  can." 

"Well,  that  will  be  better  than  putting  it  in  the  stove 
yourself,"  she  observed,  going  back  with  an  air  of  placidity 
to  her  sewing,  "because  then  you'll  know  it's  bad  and  if 
you  burn  it  up  now,  you  won't.  You  haven't  even  heard  it." 

"I  heard  it  before  I  wrote  it,"  he  argued.  "I  hear  it  again 
when  I  read  it  That's  a  silly  argument.  Of  course  I  know 
it." 

"You  said  a  little  while  ago  that  you'd  never  heard  any 
of  your  music  until  Mrs.  Wollaston  sang  those  songs.  They 
sounded  better  than  you  thought  they  would." 

"That's  different,"  he  protested.  "I  knew  they  were 
good,  damned  good.  Only  I  didn't  quite  realize  how  good 
they  were.  I  suppose  I  won't  realize  until  I  hear  her  sing 
this  how  rotten  it  is.  But  I  don't  need  to.  I  know  well 
enough  right  now." 

He  went  on  turning  the  pages  back  and  forth  with 
gloomy  violence,  reading  a  passage  here  and  another  there 
and  failing  to  get  the  faintest  ray  of  comfort  out  of  any  of 
it,  even  out  of  the  old  soiled  quires  which  belonged  obvi- 
ously to  the  original  score. 

"Is  it  all  bad?"  she  asked.    "Or  just  the  new  part." 

"The  whole  thing,"  he  grunted. 


THE  DUMB  PRINCESS  119 

"That's  that  Belgian  thing,  isn't  it?" 

"That's  the  one." 

"Well,"  she  pointed  out  to  him,  "you  thought  that  was 
good  once.  If  it  all  looks  alike  to  you  this  morning,  perhaps 
what  you've  just  been  writing  is  as  good  as  that,  and  it's 
just  your  mood  to-day  that  makes  it  look  rotten." 

He  closed  the  score  and  slapped  his  hand  down  upon 
it  with  a  gesture  of  dismissal.  Then  he  rose  and  leaned 
back  against  the  edge  of  the  table.  "That's  good  logic,  my 
dear,"  he  conceded,  "but  it  doesn't  cover  the  ground.  The 
old  stuff  was  good  in  a  way.  I  really  meant  it  and  felt  it 
and  I  managed  to  get  it  down  on  paper.  And  the  new  stuff 
is  like  it,  in  that  it's  a  damned  clever  imitation  of  it.  I  had 
to  do  it  that  way  because  I  couldn't  get  back  into  the  old 
mood.  I'm  sick  of  atrocities  and  horrors — everything  that's 
got  the  name  of  war  in  it,  even  though  I  was  never  under 
fire  myself.  Well,  writing  the  imitation  has  made  me  hate 
the  thing  I  was  trying  to  imitate.  I  stuck  at  it  for  the  reason 
I  told  you  this  morning.  But,  good  God,  when  it  results  in 
stuff  like  this  .  .  .  !  Jennie,  what  shall  I  do  about  it? 
Shall  I  take  this  thing  now  and  chuck  it  into  the  stove  and 
then  tell  LaChaise  and  Mrs.  Wollaston  to  go  to  the  devil? 
Or  shall  I  tuck  it  under  my  arm  like  a  good  little  boy  and 
see  if  I  can  get  away  with  it  ?" 

She  looked  at  him  thoughtfully.  "What  is  the  new  thing 
you  want  to  write  ?"  she  asked. 

He  smiled.  "You're  a  wonder,  Jennie,"  he  said.  "There 
is  a  new  thing.  I'm  simply  swamped  in  it.  It  won't  let 
me  alone.  It's  been  driving  me  pretty  nearly  crazy.  That's 
why  it's  been  such  perfect  hell  sticking  to  this  other  thing. 
Jennie,  it's  another  opera.  A  big  one,  full  size.  A  romantic 
fairy  opera.  I  haven't  got  it  in  order  yet.  It  isn't  fit  to 
talk  about.  But  it's  about  a  princess,  a  little  blue-eyed,  pale- 
haired  princess,  who  is  under  a  spell.  She's  dumb.  She's 


120  MARY  WOLLASTON 

dumb  except  in  the  presence  of  her  true  lover.  Do  you  see  ? 
They  are  trying  to  cure  her  and  they  can't.  But  mys- 
teriously in  the  night  they  hear  her  singing.  Her  lover  is 
with  her,  and  they  try  to  solve  the  mystery.  Maybe  they 
kill  him,  I  don't  know.  Or  maybe  they  make  him  faithless 
to  her.  I  don't  know  whether  there  is  a  fairy  story  like  that 
or  whether  I  just  made  it  up.  And  I  haven't  worked  it  out 
at  all.  I  haven't  any  words  for  it,  no  book,  nor  anything. 
But  I  tell  you  it  comes  in  waves,  whole  scenes  from  it.  I'd 
like  a  hundred  hands  to  write  it  down  with.  I'd  like  to  take 
one  header  into  it  and  never  come  up.  And  meanwhile  I'm 
slugging  away  at  that  other  damned  thing  because  Mrs. 
Wollaston  and  LaChaise  want  it, — because  it's  the  main 
chance." 

She  asked  why  he  didn't  tell  them  about  the  new  idea 
and  get  them  to  adopt  it  instead,  but  he  greeted  this  sugges- 
tion with  an  impatient  laugh. 

"It  would  be  absolutely  impossible  for  Ravinia  in  the 
first  place,"  he  said.  "The  thing  would  need  as  big  a  pro- 
duction as,  oh,  Pelleas  and  Melisande.  And  then  this 
woman  could  never  sing  it.  She  isn't  the  type.  This  is 
different  altogether  from  anything  she  could  do.  Oh,  no, 
it's  quite  hopeless  until  after  I've  succeeded  with  something 
else.  But,  oh,  my  God,  Jennie,  if  you  could  hear  it!" 

She  had  finished  her  repairs  on  his  coat  and  rising  now 
held  it  up  to  him.  While  he  was  groping  for  the  sleeves, 
she  asked  quietly,  "Who  is  the  princess,  Tony?  The  dumb 
little  princess  with  the  blue  eyes." 

For  a  second  he  stood  just  as  he  was,  like  one  suddenly 
frozen,  then  he  settled  into  his  coat,  walked  over  to  his  work 
chair  and  dropped  into  it,  leaning  forward  and  propping  up 
his  head  with  his  hands.  "Yes,"  he  said.  "In  a  way,  per- 
haps, there  is  some  one.  That's  what  I  was  going  to  tell 
you  about.  She  came  in  as  quiet  as  a  little  ghost,  just  as 


THE  DUMB  PRINCESS  121 

Mrs.  Wollaston  was  beginning  to  sing  and  she  sat  down 
beside  me  without  a  word.  And  somehow  while  we  listened, 
we — we  were  the  same  person.  I  can't  make  you  under- 
stand that.  It  never  happened  to  me  before,  nothing  in  the 
least  like  it,  nothing  so — intimate.  I  felt  that  song  go 
vibrating  right  through  her.  She  didn't  speak  at  all,  even 
after  it  was  over,  except  to  say  that  we  mustn't  talk — while 
we  were  waiting  for  the  people  in  the  other  room  to  go  away. 
And  then  Mrs.  Wollaston  came  and  got  me.  She  didn't  see 
her  at  all.  She  had  disappeared  somehow  by  that  time." 

He  stopped  but  Jennie,  it  seemed,  had  nothing  to  say 
just  then.  She  turned  away  to  her  outdoor  wrap  but  she 
laid  it  down  again  and  stood  still  when  he  went  on. 

"Yon  don't  want  to  run  away  with  the  idea  that  I'm  in 
love  with  her,"  he  said.  "That  isn't  it.  That's  particularly 
— not  it.  I  haven't  an  idea  who  she  is  nor  any  intention  of 
trying  to  find  out.  Even  if  I  knew  the  way  to  begin  getting 
acquainted  with  her,  I'm  inclined  to  think  I'd  avoid  it.  But 
as  an  abstraction — no,  that's  not  what  I  mean — as  a  symbol 
of  what  I'll  find  waiting  for  me  whenever  I  get  down  to 
the  core  of  things  .  .  .  I've  got  a  sort  of — superstition  if 
I  don't  do  anything  to — to  break  the  spell,  you  know,  that 
sometime  she'll  come  back  just  the  way  she  came  that  night." 

With  a  little  exaggeration  of  the  significance  of  the  act, 
she  put  on  the  coat  she  had  crossed  the  room  to  get.  He 
got  up  and  came  over  to  help  her  but  he  stopped  with  a 
sudden  clenching  of  the  hands,  and  a  wave  of  color  in  his 
face  as  he  saw  the  look  in  hers.  At  that  she  came  swiftly  to 
meet  him,  pulled  him  up  in  a  tight  embrace  and  kissed  him. 

"Good  luck,  my  dear,"  she  said.  "I  must  be  running  and 
so  must  you.  I'd  take  you  with  me  only  we  go  different 
ways.  Carry  your  score  along  to  the  Wollastons.  That's 
the  first  step  to  the  princess,  I  guess." 


CHAPTER  IX 

IN  HARNESS 

THE  episode  upon  which  March  had  built  the  opera  he 
called  The  Outcry,  was  one  that  was  current  during  the 
autumn  of  1914.  A  certain  Belgian  town  had  been  burnt  and 
it  had  been  officially  explained  that  this  was  done  because 
the  German  officer  who  was  billeted  upon  the  burgomaster 
had  been  shot.  The  story  was  that  the  burgomaster's  son 
shot  him  because  he  had  raped  his  sister.  The  thing  got 
complete  possession  of  March's  mind.  At  first  just  the 
horror  of  it  and  later  its  dramatic  and  musical  possibilities. 
He  saw,  in  orchestral  terms,  the  sodden  revelry  in  that 
staid  house — with  its  endless  cellars  of  Burgundy.  He  saw 
the  tight-drawn  terror  in  the  girl's  room  where  she  lay  in 
bed.  He  saw  the  room  lighted  fitfully  by  the  play  of  search- 
lights over  the  city;  the  sinister  entrance  from  a  little  bal- 
cony through  the  French  widow,  of  the  officer  in  uniform, 
his  shadow  flung  ahead  of  him  by  the  beam  of  the  search- 
light. He  saw  the  man,  blood-  as  well  as  wine-drunk,  gar- 
rulous and  fanatic  with  the  megalomania  of  the  conquer- 
ing invader.  He  saw  the  man's  intention  made  clear  from 
the  first,  but  the  execution  of  it  luxuriously  postponed. 
Safely  postponed  because  of  the  terrified  girl's  acceptance 
of  his  assurance  that  if  anything  happened  to  him,  if  a 
hand  were  raised  against  him,  her  father  and  a  dozen  more 
hostages  would  be  shot  and  the  town  burned  to  the  ground. 
Then  came  the  girl's  irrepressible  outcry  when  he  first 
touched  her;  the  brother's  knock  at  the  door;  her  frantic 
effort  to  reassure  him  frustrated  by  the  officer's  drunken 
laugh ;  the  forcing  of  the  door  and  the  fight  half  in  the  dark ; 
the  killing  of  the  girl  and  then  of  her  ravisher. 

122 


IN  HARNESS  123 

The  thing  that  wouldn't  let  March  alone,  that  forced 
him  into  the  undertaking,  was  the  declaration  of  the  brutal 
philosophy  of  the  conqueror  made  by  the  officer  while  he 
gloated  over  the  girl  who  was  to  be  his  prey ;  the  chance  to 
put  into  musical  terms  that  paranoiac  delusion  of  world 
conquest.  One  recognized  in  it,  vaguely,  some  of  Wagner's 
themes  and  some  of  Straus',  distorted  and  grown  mon- 
strous. 

The  thing  had  haunted  March,  as  I  have  said,  and  he 
had  tried  to  find  somebody  who  would  write  him  the  book, 
the  indispensable  preliminary  to  his  getting  to  work.  Fail- 
ing here,  he  had  audaciously  made  up  his  mind  to  write  'it 
himself.  It  was  not  his  first  attempt  to  do,  in  the  mere  light 
of  nature,  a  thing  commonly  supposed  to  be  impossible 
except  at  the  end  of  painful  instruction.  He  had  once  ex- 
perimented at  painting  in  oils,  he  had  tried  his  hand  at  the 
stylus,  he  had  made  a  few  figurines  in  modeling-wax.  He 
wrote  his  play,  then,  by  the  simple  process  of  building  first 
with  painstaking  accuracy,  a  model  of  his  stage,  the  girl's 
room  in  that  burgomaster's  house  with  the  French  windows 
giving  upon  the  little  balcony.  He  modeled  the  furniture 
in  plastiscene.  He  bought  three  little  dolls  to  represent  his 
characters.  And  then  he  reported  what  he  saw  happening1 
in  that  room ;  what  his  characters  did  and  what  they  said. 
By  the  time  he  had  finished  this  work,  the  music  was  all  in 
his  head.  He  couldn't  write  it  down  fast  enough. 

It  had  been  one  of  the  great  experiences  of  his  life, 
writing  that  opera.  Jennie's  reminder  that  he  had  once 
believed  it  good,  was  a  conservative  statement.  LaChaise 
and  Paula  were  deeply  impressed  by  the  power,  both  of 
its  music  and  its  drama  and  saw  possibilities  in  it  for  a 
sensational  success.  The  drawback,  fatal  unless  it  could  be 
overcome,  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  dominant  role  in  it  was 
that  of  the  baritone.  Dramatically  the  soprano's  part  was 


124  MARY  WOLLASTON 

good  enough,  but  there  was  nowhere  near  enough  for  her 
to  sing.  There  was  no  reason  though,  they  both  asserted 
and  sent  March  away  from  their  conference  at  least  half 
convinced,  why  the  girl's  part  could  not  be  greatly  amplified. 
There  were  various  expedients; — a  preliminary  scene  be- 
tween the  girl  and  her  brother ;  an  apostrophe  to  an  absent 
lover;  a  prayer.  Also  instead  of  being  frozen  into  terror- 
stricken  silence  by  her  ravisher's  monstrous  purpose,  she 
could  just  as  well  be  represented  as  making  a  desperate 
resistance.  She  could  plead  with  him,  denounce  him ;  at- 
tempt to  take  advantage  of  his  drunkenness  and  trick  him. 
It  could  be  made  as  good  a  woman's  part  as  the  big  act  of 
Tosca. 

March  had  assented  to  all  this  and  gone  to  work. 

Paula  did  not  tell  him,  as  he  had  gloomily  prophesied 
to  Jennie,  to  take  the  new  first  scene  he  brought  her  that 
Sunday  out  to  the  ash  can.  And,  indeed,  it  sounded  so  much 
better  when  they  read  it  over  together,  that  he  was  for  the 
moment  reassured.  But  her  attitude  toward  the  opera  was 
different  from  the  one  she  had  taken  toward  the  group  of 
Whitman  songs,  and  this  difference  grew  more  marked  at 
their  subsequent  sessions  over  it.  There  had  been  about 
the  songs  the  glamour  of  discovery.  One  does  not  hasten 
to  apply  the  assayer's  acid  to  treasure  trove.  And,  too,  it 
was  an  altruistic  impulse  which  had  prompted  her  to  take 
up  the  songs. 

There  aren't  many  people  who  can  travel  steadily,  or 
very  far,  on  that  motivation,  and  Paula  was  not  one  of  them. 
From  the  moment  when  she  took  the  plunge,  ignored — all 
but  defied — her  husband's  wishes,  and  signed  the  Ravinia 
contract,  she  ceased  to  be  concerned  for  anything,  broadly 
speaking,  but  her  own  success.  March's  opera,  then,  was 
not,  to  her,  the  expression  of  his  genius  but  a  potential 
vehicle  for  hers.  She  was  acutely  critical  of  it.  She  knew 


IN  HARNESS  125 

what  she  wanted  and  it  was  not  thinkable  that  she  should 
put  up  with  anything  less. 

She  was  not  aware  of  this  change  of  attitude.  She  was 
blessed  with  a  vigorous  non-analytical  mind  that  asked  no 
awkward  questions,  suggested  no  paralyzing  doubts.  The 
best  thing  that  could  possibly  happen  to  March's  opera  was 
that  it  should  be  made  to  fit  her;  that  it  should  demand 
precisely  all  her  resources  and  nothing  that  was  beyond 
them.  Obviously,  since  it  was  going  to  be  her  opera,  a  thing 
she  was  going  to  wear. 

Had  she  been,  as  many  eminent  persons  in  her  profession 
are,  a  mere  bundle  of  insensate  egotisms  complicated  by  a 
voice,  she  would  have  driven  March  to  flat  rebellion  in  a 
week,  all  his  good  resolutions  notwithstanding.  What  made 
it  tolerable  was  that  she  had  a  good  musical  intelligence  of 
her  own,  and  a  real  dramatic  sense.  He  could  recognize 
what  she  wanted  as  an  intelligible  thing,  consistent  with 
itself.  Only,  it  was  not  his  thing — not  the  thing  he  saw. 
By  reason  of  its  very  consistency  it  was  never  the  thing  he 
saw. 

"She  wouldn't  do  it  that  way,"  he  would  protest. 

"I  would,"  Paula  would  tell  him.  "I  wouldn't  lie  there, 
whimpering." 

He  was  always  arguing  with  her — wrangling,  it  almost 
came  to,  sometimes — in  defense  of  his  own  conception.  For 
a  sample: 

"Look  at  what  she  is ;  a  burgomaster's  daughter.  That 
means  prosperous,  narrow-minded,  middle-class  people. 
She's  convent-bred,  devout.  She's  still  young  or  she'd  be 
married.  She's  altogether  without  experience.  She's 
frightened  just  as  a  child  would  be  over  what's  going  on 
in  the  house.  And  the  prayer  she  says  when  she  goes  to  bed 
would  be  just  the  nice  little  prayer  a  child  would  say,  an 
Our  Father  or  a  Hail  Mary,  whatever  it  might  be.  As 


126  MARY  WOLLASTON 

simple  as  possible,  on  the  surface,  but  with  an  undertone  of 
overmastering  terror.  The  sort  of  Promethean  defiance 
you're  talking  about  would  be  inconceivable  to  a  child  like 
that." 

"I  suppose  it  would,  to  most  of  them/'  she  admitted, 
"but  this  one's  going  to  be  different.  After  all,  it's  the  ex- 
ceptional ones  that  usually  have  operas  written  about  them. 
I  don't  believe  all  the  dancers  in  Alexandria  were  like  Thais, 
nor  all  the  gipsy  cigar-makers  in  Seville  like  Carmen.  I 
don't  believe  many  little  Japanese  girls  would  feel  about 
Pinkerton  the  way  Cio  Cio  San  did.  Why  can't  our  Dolores 
be  an  exception,  too?" 

The  only  answer  he  could  make  to  that  was  that  it 
spoiled  the  other  figure,  reduced  him  from  a  sort  of  cosmic 
monster  to  the  mere  custom-made  grand-opera  villain. 

"What  if  it  does?"  she  retorted.  "This  isn't  being  written 
for  Scotti  or  Vanni  Marcoux.  It's  being  written  for  me." 
That  was  the  tonic  chord  they  always  came  back  to.  It  was 
Paula's  opera. 

March  presently  began  to  feel,  too,  that  he  was  growing 
to  be  nothing  more  than  Paula's  composer.  It  was  impor- 
tant to  the  success  of  their  enterprise  that  his  reputation 
should  be  intensively  exploited  among  the  rich  and  influ- 
ential who  figured  as  patrons  of  the  Ravinia  season.  She 
went  at  the  task  of  building  it  as  ruthlessly  as  she  remodeled 
his  opera. 

Her  demands  upon  him  were  explicit.  In  the  first  place 
he  was  to  bring  her  all  his  music,  early  as  well  as  late,  trivial 
as  well  as  important,  in  order  that  she  might  select  from  it 
what,  if  anything,  might  be  exploited  at  once.  She  had 
promised  to  give  a  recital  just  before  Easter,  in  aid  of  one 
of  the  local  charities — it  was  one  that  boasted  an  important 
list  of  patronesses — and  if  she  could  make  an  exclusive  pro- 
gram of  his  songs  she  would  like  to  do  so.  Then,  while  it 


IN  HARNESS  127 

was  too  late  to  get  any  of  his  compositions  performed  by 
the  orchestra  this  season,  it  would  be  a  good  thing  to  get 
Mr.  Stock  to  read  something  in  the  hope  of  his  taking  it  for 
next  year.  An  announcement,  even  a  mere  unofficial  inti- 
mation, that  Anthony  March  (whose  opera  .  .  .  and  so 
on) — was  to  be  represented  on  the  symphony  programs  next 
season,  would  help  a  lot. 

What  dismayed  him  most  was  her  insistence — she  was 
clear  as  a  bell  about  this — that  he  himself  get  up  the 
accompaniments  to  some  of  the  simpler  of  his  songs  so 
that  when  she  took  him  out  to  meet  people  who  wanted  to 
hear  a  sample  of  his  music  then  and  there,  they  could 
manage,  between  them,  some  sort  of  compliance.  He  nearly 
got  angry,  but  decided  to  laugh  instead,  over  her  demand 
that  he  be  waiting,  back  stage,  when  she  gave  her  recital 
of  his  songs  (which  she  did  with  great  success)  to  come 
out  at  the  end  and  take  his  bow  in  his  now  discarded  uni- 
form. It  was  the  only  reference  she  ever  made  to  his  shabby 
appearance. 

(It  was  steadily  growing  shabbier,  too,  since  she  left  hin 
hardly  any  time  at  all  for  tuning  pianos.  She  would  have 
been  utterly  horrified  had  she  known  what  tiny  sums  he  was 
living  on  from  week  to  week.  And  it  never  occurred  to  her 
when  she  suggested  that  a  certain  score  of  his  ought  to  be 
copied,  that  he  could  not  afford  to  take  it  out  to  a  pro- 
fessional copyist  and  so  sat  up  nights  doing  it  himself.  He 
did  it  rather  easily,  to  be  sure,  since  it  was  one  of  the  nu- 
merous things  at  which  he  had  earned  a  living.) 

There  was  only  one  of  her  many  demands  that  he 
persistently  refused  to  comply  with.  And  she  took  this 
refusal  rather  hard;  acted  more  hurt  than  angry  about  it, 
to  be  sure,  but  came  back  to  it  again  and  again.  When  she 
discovered  that  he  made  no  pretense  of  living  at  his  father's 
house,  she  asked  for  his  real  address  so  that  she  could 


128  MARY  WOLLASTON 

always  be  sure  of  getting  at  him  when  she  wanted  him. 
This  he  would  not  give  her.  If  he  did,  he  said,  it  would  only 
result  in  his  staying  away  from  there  and  doing  his  work 
somewhere  else.  It  was  one  of  his  simple  necessities  to 
knozv  that  he  couldn't  be  got  at.  He  would  make  every 
possible  concession.  Would  go,  or  telephone,  at  punctili- 
ously regular  and  brief  intervals,  to  his  father's  house  to 
learn  whether  she  had  sent  for  him,  but  give  up  the  secrecy 
of  his  lair  he  would  not.  It  wasn't  possible. 

I  think  she  compensated  herself  for  this  refusal  by 
sending  for  him  sometimes  when  she  did  not  really  need 
him,  just  to  be  on  the  safe  side,  and,  on  the  same  basis, 
engaged  his  attendance  ahead  from  day  to  day.  Anyhow, 
she  occupied,  in  one  way  or  another,  practically  the  whole 
of  his  time ;  and  the  dumb  little  blue-eyed  princess  knocked 
at  his  door  in  vain.  Only  in  those  hours  when  sheer  fatigue 
had  sent  him  to  bed  had  she  any  opportunity  of  visiting 
him.  Sometimes  she  made  white  nights  for  him  by  haunt- 
ing those  hours,  refusing  to  go  away;  sometimes,  by  not 
coming  at  all,  she  filled  him  with  terror  lest  she  had  gone 
for  good — would  not  come  back  even  when  he  was  ready 
for  her.  When  that  panic  was  upon  him  he  hated  Paula 
with  a  devouring  hatred. 

Of  the  human  original  of  his  blue-eyed  princess,  he  saw 
during  those  weeks,  nothing.  On  that  first  Sunday  when  he 
lunched  at  the  house  he  heard  them  speak  of  a  member  of 
the  family,  a  daughter  of  John  Wollaston,  named  Mary, 
who  had  been  living  in  New  York  and  had  recently  returned 
but  was  not  lunching  at  home  that  day.  He  got  the  idea 
then  that  she  might  be  the  girl  who  had  so  mysteriously  come 
in  and  sat  beside  him  while  Paula  sang;  and  without  any 
evidence  whatever  to  support  this  surmise,  it  became  a 
settled  conviction.  But  an  odd  shrinking,  almost  supersti- 
tious, as  he  had  confessed  to  Jennie,  from  doing  anything 


IN  HARNESS  129 

that  might  break  the  spell  kept  him  from  asking  any  ques- 
tions. 

During  the  first  week  of  his  almost  daily  visits  to  the 
house,  he  got  repeated  intimations  of  her,  a  glimpse  once 
through  an  open  door  on  the  third  floor  into  a  room  that 
struck  him  as  being,  probably,  hers.  The  impression,  once 
more,  when  he  was  coming  down  from  the  music  room 
that  this  was  the  door  which  he  had  just  heard  softly  shut 
as  if  some  one,  the  princess  herself,  of  course,  who  had  stood 
listening  to  the  music  for  a  while,  had  withdrawn  there 
when  she  heard  his  step  on  the  stairs.  Once  on  the  settee 
in  the  hall  he  saw  a  riding  crop  and  a  small  beaver  hat 
that  he  felt  a  curious  certainty  belonged  to  her  and  once 
out  of  a  confusion  of  young  voices  in  the  drawing-room,  and 
a  dance  tune  going  on  the  Victrola,  he  heard  some  one  call 
out  her  name,  hers  he  was  sure  though  he  didn't  hear  her 
answer.  Perhaps  she  had  answered  without  speaking.  The 
dumb  princess  again. 

Then  suddenly  even  these  faint  hints  of  her  presence 
ceased,  and  he  remarked  their  absence  with  a  troubled  won- 
der until  one  day  Paula  volunteered  the  statement  that  Mary 
had  gone  away  on  a  visit  for  a  month  or  two,  out  to 
Wyoming,  where  a  great  friend  of  hers,  Olive  Corbett,  and 
her  husband  had  a  ranch. 

By  asking  a  few  intelligent  questions,  he  could  have 
found  out  a  lot  more  about  her  from  Paula  for  she  was 
disposed  to  talk  freely  enough  about  the  family  life  she 
was  so  oddly  enclosed  in,  and  their  perpetual  quarrels  about 
the  opera  never  carried  over  into  their  breathing  spells.  In 
the  long  hours  of  their  almost  daily  sessions  the  occasional 
rests  made  up  quite  a  total  and  March  accumulated  a  lot 
of  information  about  Paula  herself. 

Indeed  it  was  not  quite  as  idle  as  that  sounds.  Paula 
talked  to  him  thirstily,  gave  him  somehow  the  impression 


130  MARY  WOLLASTON 

that  she  had  had  no  one  for  a  good  many  years  with  whom 
she  could  converse  without  reservation  in  her  own  idiom. 

She  came,  he  learned,  of  a  Virginia  family  which  had 
migrated  during  her  early  childhood  to  California.  It  was 
obvious  that  they  were  well-bred,  but  equally  so  that  they 
were  not  very  competent.  The  victims,  he  judged,  of  a  lot 
of  played-out  southern  ideas  and  traditions.  They  were 
still  living  and  March  allowed  himself  to  guess  that  they 
were  one  of  the  minor  reasons  why  Doctor  John  had  to 
earn  a  lot  of  money. 

Paula  with  her  splendid  physique  and  gorgeous  voice 
must  have  looked  to  them  like  the  family  hope.  They  had 
managed  at  considerable  sacrifice  to  send  her  abroad,  but 
evidently  without  any  idea  of  the  time  and  the  money  it 
takes  to  erect  even  the  most  promising  material  into  a 
genuine  success.  After  a  year  or  two,  she  had  been  aban- 
doned to  make  her  way  as  best  she  could. 

Even  now  that  they  were  safely  consigned  to  the  past, 
Paula  could  not  talk  about  the  shifts  and  hardships  of  that 
time  with  any  relish.  The  discouragements  must  have  sunk 
in  pretty  deep.  She  hinted — it  was  not  the  sort  of  topic  she 
could  discourse  candidly  about — that  the  blackest  of  those 
discouragements  had  come  from  the  amorous  advances  of 
men  who  had  it  in  their  power  to  open  opportunities  to  her 
but  wanted  a  quid  pro  quo. 

He  asked  her  in  that  connection  whether  during  those 
hard  times  she  had  never  felt  inclined  to  fall  in  love  on  her 
own  account. 

"I  never  cared  a  snap  of  my  fingers  for  any  man,"  she 
said  with  obvious  sincerity,  "until  I  saw  John." 

This  slowness  of  her  erotic  development  surprised  him 
irather  until  he  evoked  the  explanation  that  her  energies  had 
been  concentrated  upon  her  musical  ambition.  Music,  since 
'she  was  a  real  musician,  had  been  a  genuine  emotional 
Outlet  for  her. 


IN  HARNESS  131 

March  speculated  rather  actively  upon  the  relation  be- 
tween Paula  and  her  husband.  There  was  no  dark  room 
in  the  composer's  mind.  He  was  the  other  pole  from  Aunt 
Lucile.  All  human  problems  set  his  mind  at  work.  He  was 
not  widely  read  in  the  literature  of  psychology  and  he  had 
a  rough  working  theory  which  he  regarded  as  his  own,  a- 
dynamic  theory.  People  got  started  off  in  life  with  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  energy.  It  varied  immensely  between  indi- 
viduals, of  course,  but  one  couldn't  alter  the  total  of  his  own. 
Upon  that  store  you  ran  until  you  were  spent.  What 
channels  this  stream  of  energy  cut  for  itself  was  partly  a 
matter  of  luck,  partly  one  of  self-determination.  The  im- 
portant fact  was  that  there  was  only  so  much  and  that  what 
went  down  one  way  did  not  also  go  down  another.  It  might 
be  a  hundred  rivulets  or  one  river,  it  couldn't  be  both.  This 
philosophy  was  largely  responsible  for  the  ordering  of  his 
own  life,  for  his  doing  without  possessions,  for  the  most 
part  without  friends,  for  his  keeping  the  brake  set  so  tightly 
upon  his  sex  impulses. 

John  must  have  come  into  Paula's  life,  he  reflected,  at 
a  time  when  the  musical  outlet  to  her  energies  had  been 
dammed  up.  Her  main  stream,  like  that  of  the  Mississippi, 
had  cut  a  new  channel  for  itself.  Had  there  been,  he 
wondered,  some  similar  obstruction  in  the  main  channel  of 
John  Wollaston's  emotional  life?  Anyhow,  there  was  no 
doubt  that  for  the  five  years  since  this  cataclysm  had  oc- 
curred, the  course  of  true  love  had  run  smooth  and  deep. 
But  suppose  now  that,  through  LaChaise's  intervention, 
Paula's  musical  career  was  again  opened  to  her,  would  the 
current  turn  that.way  ?  Would  John  be  left  stranded  ?  Had 
Paula  herself  any  misgivings  to  this  effect? 

That  she  was  deeply  troubled  about  her  present  relation 
with  John  and  in  general  about  John  himself,  would  have 
been  plain  to  a  less  penetrating  eye  than  Anthony's.  There 
was  no  open  quarrel  between  them.  Wollaston  dropped  into 


132  MARY  WOLLASTON 

the  music  room  sometimes,  late  ia  the  afternoon,  to  ask 
how  the  opera  was  getting  along.  His  manner  to  March  on 
these  occasions  was  one  of,  perhaps,  slightly  overwrought 
politeness,  but  the  intention  of  it  did  not  seem  hostile. 
Toward  Paula  he  presented  the  image  of  humorous,  affec- 
tionate concern,  the  standard  behavior  of  the  perfect  hus- 
band. 

It  was  Paula,  on  these  occasions,  who  gave  the  show 
away,  betraying  by  a  self-conscious  eagerness  to  make  him 
welcome,  the  fact  that  he  was  not.  She  made  the  mistake 
of  telling  him  he  looked  tired  and  worried,  facts  too  glar- 
ingly true  to  be  bandied  about  in  the  presence  of  a  stranger. 
He  looked  to  March  as  if  he  were  approaching  the  elastic 
limit  of  complete  exhaustion.  That  it  looked  pretty  much 
like  that  to  Paula  herself  was  made  evident  from  the  way 
she  once  spoke  about  him,  her  eyes  full  of  tears,  after  he 
had  left  the  room. 

"He's  working  so  insanely  hard,"  she  said.  "Nights  as 
well  as  days.  I  don't  believe  he's  had  five  hours'  consecutive 
sleep  this  week." 

When  March  wanted  to  know  why  he  did  it,  she 
hesitated,  but  gave  him,  at  last,  a  candid  answer.  No  one 
else  would  have  answered  it  at  all. 

"I  don't  think  it  can  be  because  he  feels  he  has  to,"  she 
said.  "To  earn  the  money,  I  mean.  Of  course,  he's  been 
buying  a  big  farm,  half  of  it,  for  Rush.  But  he  said  the 
other  day  that  if  I  needed  any  extra  money  for  this" — she 
nodded  toward  the  score  on  the  piano — "I  was  to  let  him 
know.  Of  course,  he  isn't  happy  about  it  and  I  suppose  it 
makes  him  take  things  harder." 

Naturally  enough,  March  agreed  with  her  here.  John 
Wollaston  was  clearly  a  member  of  the  gold  coast  class.  It 
wasn't  thinkable  that  his  financial  difficulties  could  be  real. 
The  unreality  of  them  was,  of  course,  the  measure  of  the 


IN  HARNESS  133 

genuineness  of  his  fear  of  losing  Paula, — of  seeing  the  main 
current  of  her  life  shift  once  more  to  its  old  channel.  Did 
Paula  see  that,  March  wondered  ?  What  was  it  she  foresaw  ? 

He  got  a  partial  answer  one  day  in  the  course  of  one  of 
their  quarrels  about  the  opera.  He  had  unguardedly  given 
expression  to  his  growing  despondency  about  it. 

"This  thing  can't  go,"  he  had  said.  "It's  getting  more 
lifeless  from  week  to  week  We're  draining  all  the  blood 
out  of  it  and  this  stuff  we're  putting  in  is  sawdust." 

She  whipped  round  upon  him  in  a  sudden  tempest. 
"It's  got  to  go,"  she  said.  "It's  got  to  be  made  to  go.  If 
what  you're  putting  into  it  is  sawdust,  take  it  out.  Put 
some  heart  into  it." 

He  had  been  staring  gloomily  at  the  score.  Now  he" 
turned  away  from  it.  "That's  what  I  don't  seem  able  to 
do,"  he  said. 

She  came  up  and  took  him  by  the  shoulders  so  violently 
that  it  might  almost  be  said  she  shook  him.  "You  can't  let 
go  like  that.  It's  too  late.  Everything  I've  got  in  the 
world  is  mixed  up  in  it."  She  must  have  read  his  unspoken 
thought  there  for  she  went  on,  "Oh,  I  suppose  you'd  say 
I'd  still  have  John  if  I  did  fail.  Well,  I  wouldn't.  He's 
mixed  up  in  it,  too.  He'd  never  forgive  me  if  I  failed.  It's 
the  fear  I'll  fail  and  make  myself  look  cheap  and  ridiculous 
that  makes  him  hate  it  so.  Well,  I'm  not  going  to.  Make 
up  your  mind  to  that!" 

Later,  when  he  was  leaving,  under  a  promise  to  improve 
some  of  the  passages  they  had  been  arguing  about,  she 
reverted  to  this  aspect  of  the  matter  and  added  something. 
"John  can  see  what  a  failure  would  mean.  But  what  the 
other  thing — the  big  real  success — would  mean  to  both  of 
us,  he  hasn't  the  faintest  idea  of.  He  won't  till  I  get  it." 

"He's  a  famous  person,  himself,  of  course,"  March  ob- 
served, not  without  a  gleam  of  mischief. 


134  MARY  WOLLASTON 

She  echoed  the  word  quite  blankly,  and  he  went  on  to 
amplify. 

"That  European  Medical  Commission  that  was  out  here 
a  few  weeks  ago  attended  some  of  his  clinics  in  a  body. 
I  don't  suppose  there's  a  first-class  hospital  anywhere  in 
this  country  or  in  Europe  where  his  name  isn't  known. 
That  operation  he  did  on  Sarah  turned  out  to  be  a  classic, 
you  know.  He  used  a  new  technique  in  it  which  has  become 
standard  since." 

But  it  seemed  to  him  that  she  still  looked  incredulous 
when  he  went  away,  incapable  of  really  digesting  that  idea 
at  all.  No,  he  wouldn't  have  bet  much  on  the  chance  that 
any  great  success  of  hers  could  reunite  them.  The  love  life 
that  they  had  been  enjoying  this  last  five  years  hadn't 
thrown  out  any  radicles  to  bind  them  together— children 
for  instance. 

March  wondered  why  there  had  been  no  children.  He 
was  not  inclined  to  accept  the  obvious  explanation  that  she 
hadn't  wanted  any.  She  had  spoken  once  of  her  childless- 
ness in  a  tone  that  didn't  quite  square  with  that  explanation. 
Nor  had  she  said  it  quite  as  she  would,  had  she  felt  that  her 
husband  shared  equally  in  her  disappoinment.  It  was  all 
very  intangible,  of  course,  just  the  way  she  inflected  the 
sentence,  "You  see,  I  haven't  any  children."  Was  it  John 
that  didn't  want  them?  Well,  he  had  two  of  his  own,  of 
course.  Had  he  shrunk  from  having  this  new  passion  of 
his  domesticated?  And  then  he  was  a  gynecologist.  Was 
he,  perhaps,  afraid  for  her?  That  explanation  had  a  sort 
of  plausibility  about  it  for  Anthony  March.  If  that  were 
true,  his  caution  had  only  brought  him  face  to  face  with  a 
greater  risk.  March  felt  sorry  for  John  Wollaston. 

But  it  quite  truly  never  occurred  to  him  to  hold  him- 
self in  the  smallest  degree  responsible  for  the  husband's 
troubles.  To  a  man  with  a  better  developed  possessive 


IN  HARNESS  135 

sense,  it  might  have  occurred  that  he  was  poaching  in 
another's  preserves.  When  a  husband  made  it  plain  that 
he  chose  to  keep  a  particularly  rare  and  valuable  possession 
such  as  a  wife  like  Paula  must  be  considered,  in  the  tower 
of  brass  LaChaise  had  talked  about,  it  became  the  duty  of 
every  other  well-disposed  male  to  take  pains  to  leave  no 
keys,  rope  ladders  or  files  lying  about  by  which  she  might 
effect  her  escape.  But  a  consideration  of  this  sort  would 
not  even  have  been  intelligible  to  March,  let  alone  trouble- 
some. 


CHAPTER  X 

AN   INTERVENTION 

MARY  could  not  have  described  the  thing  there  was 
about  old  Nat's  manner  of  going  by  her  door  that 
led  her  to  halt  him  and  inquire  what  he  was  up  to.  One  sees, 
sometimes,  one  of  his  children  gliding  very  innocently  along 
toward  the  nearest  way  out  with  an  effect  of  held  breath 
that  prompts  investigation.  In  this  sixty-year  old  child, 
upon  whom  the  terror  of  John  Wollaston's  desperate  illness 
lay  more  visibly  than  on  any  other  member  of  the  house- 
hold, this  look  of  gusto  was  especially  striking.  Mary's 
question  was  prompted  by  no  more  serious  an  impulse  than 
to  share  with  him  a  momentary  escape  from  the  all-envelop- 
ing misery. 

But  she  found  old  Nat  unwilling  to  share  his  source 
of  satisfaction  with  her.  He  protested,  indeed,  with  an  air 
of  deeply  aggrieved  innocence,  that  nothing  of  the  sort 
existed.  A  man  was  waiting  now  in  the  lower  hall  who 
had  come  to  make  the  customary  inquiries.  Nat  had  con- 
veyed them  to  Paula  and  was  returning  with  her  answer. 
This  was  so  flagrantly  disingenuous  that  Mary  smiled. 

"Who  is  the  man?"  she  asked. 

The  old  servant  shuffled  his  feet.  "It's  that  good-for- 
nothing  piano  tuner,  Miss  Mary,"  he  told  her  reluctantly. 
"I  reckon  you  don't  know  much  about  him.  He's  been 
coming  around  a  lot  since  you've  been  away.  He's  been 
sticking  to  Miss  Paula  like  a  leech,  right  up  to  the  day  your 
father  got  sick.  Then  he  didn't  come  any  more  and  I 
thought  we  were  done  with  him.  But  he  came  back  to-day 
and  asked  me  if  Miss  Paula  was  up  in  the  music  room.  He'd 

136 


AN  INTERVENTION  137 

have  gone  right  straight  up  to  that  room  where  Doctor  John 
is  fighting  for  his  life  if  I  hadn't  stopped  him." 

"Did  you  tell  him  father  was  ill?"  she  asked,  and  was 
astonished  at  the  flare  of  passion  this  evoked  from  him. 

"It  ain't  no  business  of  his,  Miss  Mary,"  he  said  grimly. 
"Nothing  about  this  family  is  any  business  of  his."  Then 
as  if  anxious  to  prevent  the  significance  of  that  from  reach- 
ing her,  he  hurried  on.  "He  was  so  sure  Miss  Paula  wanted 
to  see  him,  I  told  him  if  he'd  wait,  I'd  inform  her  that  he 
was  here.  I've  done  told  her  and  she  said  he  was  to  go 
away.  She  couldn't  besbothered  with  him.  And  then  she 
said  to  me  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  *I  wish  I'd  never  seen 
him,  Nat.'  Those  were  her  words,  Miss  Mary.  'I  wish 
my  eyes  had  never  beheld  him!'  That's  what  she  said  to 
me  not  a  minute  ago.  I'm  going  down  to  fix  him  so  she'll 
never  see  him  again." 

"You  needn't  go  down,"  Mary  said  decisively.  "I'll 
see  him  myself." 

She  had  got  home  that  morning  summoned  by  a  tele- 
gram, one  of  those  carefully  composed  encouraging 
telegrams  that  are  a  simple  distillate  of  despair.  During  the 
three  days  it  had  taken  to  accomplish  her  journey  from  the 
ranch,  she  had  gradually  relinquished  all  hope  of  finding 
her  father  alive.  Rush,  who  met  the  train,  had  reassured 
her.  It  was  a  bad  case  of  double  pneumonia.  They  were 
expecting  the  crisis  within  twenty-four  hours.  The  doctors 
gave  him  an  even  chance,  but  the  boy  was  more  confident. 
"They  don't  know  dad,"  he  said.  "He  isn't  going  to  die." 

On  the  way  back  to  the  house  he  had  outlined  the  facts 
for  her.  His  father  had  driven  out  to  the  farm  in  his  open 
roadster  a  week  ago  Sunday  to  see  how  he  and  Graham 
were  getting  on — driven  out  alone,  though  he  had  spoken 
the  night  before,  over  the  telephone,  of  bringing  Paula  with 


138  MARY  \VOLLASTON 

him.  For  some  reason  that  hadn't  come  off.  Dad  had 
seemed  well  enough,  then,  though  rather  tired  and  dis- 
pirited. The  day  had  begun  as  if  it  meant  to  be  fine,  for  a 
change,  but  it  had  turned  off  cold  again  and  begun  to  rain 
while  they  were  walking  over  the  place.  His  father,  he  was 
afraid,  had  got  pretty  wet.  When  they  got  back  to  the 
farm-house  they  found  a  telephone  message  urgently 
summoning  him  to  town,  and  he  had  driven  away,  in  the 
open  car,  without  changing. 

Rush  had  meant  to  telephone  but  had  neglected  this — 
they  were  terribly  busy,  of  course,  trying  to  get  things  done 
without  any  labor  to  do  them  with.  He  had  come  home 
Wednesday,  on  a  promise  to  Graham's  kid  sister  that  he 
would  attend  a  school  dance  of  hers.  He  had  dressed  at 
home  but  not  dined  there  and  had  seen  nothing  of  his 
father  until  very  late,  about  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  when 
he  noticed  a  light  in  his  room  as  he  passed  on  the  way  to 
his  own. 

"I  don't  know  why  I  stopped,"  he  said.  "He  was  talk- 
ing and  his  voice  didn't  sound  natural,  not  as  if  he  was 
telephoning  nor  talking  to  any  one  in  the  room,  either.  He 
was  trying  to  telephone — to  the  hospital  to  send  an  ambu- 
lance for  him.  He  hadn't  any  breath  at  all,  even  then,  and 
the  thermometer  he'd  been  taking  his  temperature  with  read 
a  hundred  and  four." 

"But— the  hospital?" 

"I  know,"  Rush  agreed.  "It's  pretty  rum.  He  stuck  to 
it.  Wanted  to  be  got  straight  out  of  the  house  without 
rousing  anybody.  He  was  a  little  bit  delirious,  of  course. 
I  agreed  to  it  to  pacify  him,  but  I  telephoned  straight  to 
Doctor  Darby  and  he  told  me  not  to  do  anything  till  he 
got  around.  It  wasn't  more  than  ten  minutes  before  he 
came.  Paula  had  roused  by  that  time,  and  she  persuaded 
Darby  against  the  hospital.  She  suggested  the  music  room 


AN  INTERVENTION  139 

herself  and  as  soon  as  he  saw  it  he  said  it  was  just  the  place. 
They've  got  a  regular  hospital  rigged  up  for  him  there  and 
two  men  nurses.  But  the  main  person  on  the  job  is  Paula 
herself.  The  two  men  keep  watch  and  watch,  but  she's 
there  practically  all  the  time.  They  say  she  hasn't  slept  in 
more  than  half-hour  snatches  since  that  first  night.  She 
won't  let  any  of  us  come  near  him — and  Darby  backs  her  up. 
The  doctors  are  all  crazy  about  her.  Say  it'll  be  her  doing 
if  dad  pulls  through.  Well — she'd  better  make  it !" 

There  wasn't  time  to  explore  the  meaning  of  that  last 
remark  for  they  were  then  pulling  up  at  the  door.  She 
laid  it  aside  for  future  reference,  however.  She  was  so 
fortunate  as  to  meet  Doctor  Darby  on  the  stairs  and  so  to 
get  at  once  the  latest  and  most  authoritative  report. 

He  brightened  at  the  sight  of  her  but  she  thought  he 
didn't  look  very  hopeful.  He  said  though,  that  he  believed 
her  father  was  going  to  get  well.  "Medically,  he  hasn't 
more  than  an  even  chance.  He  hasn't  much  fight  in  him 
somehow.  But  that  stepmother  of  yours  means  to  pull  him 
through.  She  doesn't  mean  to  be  beaten  and  I  don't  believe 
she  will  be.  I've  never  seen  the  equal  of  her.  It  shows 
they're  born,  not  made.  She's  never  had,  your  aunt  assures 
me,  any  nursing  experience  whatever." 

Mary  thought  she  detected  a  twinkle  in  Darby's  eye 
over  this  mention  of  Aunt  Lucile,  but  it  was  gone  before 
she  could  make  sure. 

"You're  to  go  up  and  see  him  for  five  minutes,"  he  went 
on.  "Paula's  keeping  a  look-out  for  you.  He  mustn't  be 
allowed  to  talk,  of  course,  but  she  wants  him  to  know 
you're  back.  She  has  an  idea,  and  she's  probably  right, 
that  he  is  worrying  about  you." 

"What  is  there  that  I  can  do?"  she  asked.  "To  help,  I 
mean." 

"Hope,"  he  told  her  bluntly.    "Pray  if  you  can.    Cheer 


140  MARY  WOLLASTON 

up  your  aunt  a  bit,  if  possible ;  she's  in  despair.  Only  don't 
try  to  take  away  any  of  her  occupations.  That's  about  all." 

"In  other  words,  nothing,"  she  commented. 

"Well,  none  of  us  can  do  much  more  than  that,"  he 
said,  "excepting  always,  Paula." 

It  was  not  until  she  had  spent  that  heart-tearing  five 
minutes  at  her  father's  bedside,  while  she  talked  cheerful 
little  encouraging  futilities  in  a  voice  dry  with  the  effort 
she  had  to  make  to  keep  it  from  breaking,  that  she  saw 
her  aunt — and  felt  grateful  for  Doctor  Darby's  warning. 
Mary  had  never  thought  of  Lucile  before  as  an  old  woman, 
but  she  seemed  more  than  that  now, — broken  and,  literally,  in 
despair  of  her  brother's  life.  And  beyond  this  there  was 
a  bitterness  which  Mary  could  not,  at  first,  account  for. 

"Paula,  I  hear,  has  allowed  you  to  see  him.  For  five 
minutes !  Well,  that  is  more  than  she  has  allowed  me.  Or 
any  of  us.  It  was  a  chance  for  showing  off,  I  suppose,  that 
was  more  than  she  could  resist." 

"I  was  a  little  afraid  it  might  be  that,"  Mary  admitted. 
"Afraid  of  finding  her — carefully  costumed  for  the  part,  you 
know.  But  she  wasn't.  She  didn't  come  into  the  room  with 
me  at  all;  just  told  me  not  to  show  I  was  shocked  by  the 
way  he  looked  and  not  to  let  him  talk.  And  she  seemed  glad 
I  was  back ;  not  for  me  but  because  it  might  help  him.  It 
seems  a  miracle  that  he's  still  alive,  after  almost  a  week  of 
that,  and  I  guess  it  is  she  who  has  done  it.  They  all  say  so." 

"Men!"  the  old  woman  cried  fiercely.  "All  men!  The 
two  nurses  as  well.  There's  something  about  her  that  makes 
idiots  of  all  of  them.  She  knows  it.  And  she  revels  in  it. 
It's  the  breath  of  life  to  her.  She  has  played  fast  and  loose 
with  your  father's  happiness  for  it.  And  now  she's  playing 
with  his  life  as  well.  And  feeling,  all  the  while,  that  it  is  a 
very  noble  repentance !" 

"Repentance  for  what  ?"  Mary  asked.    "Rush  said  some- 


AN  INTERVENTION  141 

thing  like  that.  I  thought,  before  I  went  away,  that  father 
was  getting  reconciled  to  the  Ravinia  idea.  Do  you  think  it 
was  worrying  about  .  .  ." 

"No,  I  don't,"  Lucile  interrupted  shortly.  "Your  father 
was  exposed,  soaking  wet,  to  a  cold  north  wind,  while  he 
was  driving  forty  miles  in  an  open  car.  That's  the  reason 
he  took  pneumonia.  And  it's  the  only  reason.  I  don't 
know  what  Rush  may  have  been  saying  to  you,  but  I've 
known  your  father  ever  since  he  was  born,  and  I  can  tell 
you  that  Paula  might  have  gone  on  making  a  fool  of  herself 
to  the  end  of  time  without  his  dying  of  it.  He  was — fond 
of  her,  I  will  admit.  But  he  had  a  life  of  his  own  that  she 
knows  nothing  about.  He  was  too  proud  to  tell  her  about 
it,  and  she  hadn't  wit  enough  to  see  it  for  herself.  That's 
the  truth,  and  this  emotional  sprawl  she's  indulging  in  now 
doesn't  change  it. — Meanwhile,  she  is  adding  to  her  collec- 
tion five  new  men !" 

"I  don't  believe,"  said  Mary  quietly,  "that  there  is  one 
of  them  she  knows  exists.  Or  wouldn't  poison,"  she  added 
with  a  smile,  "to  improve  father's  chance  of  getting  well." 

This  won  a  nod  of  grim  assent.  "There  are  plenty  of 
them.  She  could  replace  them  easily  enough.  But  her 
hunger  for  their  worship  is  insatiable.  For  a  while  your 
father's — infatuation  satisfied  her.  She  may  have  tried  to 
pull  herself  up  to  his  level.  I  dare  say  she  did.  But  even 
at  that  time  she  could  not  abide  Wallace  Hood,  though  he 
was  kindness  itself  to  her,  simply  because  he  kept  his  head. 
Unfortunately,  this  poor  young  musician  was  not  able  to 
keep  his," 

It  seemed  to  Mary,  even  when  allowance  was  made  for 
the  bitterness  of  the  desperate  old  woman,  who  then  went 
on  for  the  better  part  of  an  hour  with  her  bill  of  par- 
ticulars, that  this  must  be  true.  Paula  must  have  lost  her 
head,  at  any  rate.  What  Mary  herself  had  seen  the  begin- 


142  MARY  WOLLASTON 

rung  of,  must  have  gone  on  at  an  accelerated  speed  until  it 
was  beyond  all  bounds.  There  had  been  few  hours  when 
March  might  not  come  to  the  house  and  none  to  which  he 
did  not  stay.  There  were  whole  days  when  Paula  was 
hardly  out  of  his  company.  She  took  him  about  with  her 
to  people's  houses.  She  talked  about  him  when  she  went 
alone.  Those  who  had  at  first  not  known  what  to  think, 
at  last  had  come  to  believe  that  there  was  only  one  thing 
they  could. 

"I  tried  to  suggest  to  her,  quite  early,  before  it  had  gone 
so  far,  that  she  was  in  danger  of  being  misunderstood.  It 
only  made  her  furious.  And  John  was  hardly  less  so  when 
I  mentioned  to  him  that  I  had  spoken  to  her.  He  would  see 
nothing;  kept  a  face  of  granite  through  it  all." 

"Aunt  Lucile,"  Mary  asked,  after  a  little  silence,  "do 
you  think  she  has  really  been — unfaithful  to  father  ?" 

Miss  Wollaston  hesitated.  "Should  you  consider  the 
conduct  I  have  described,  to  be  an  example  of  fidelity?" 

"I  mean,  in  the  divorce  court  sense,"  Mary  persisted. 

"That,"  her  aunt  said,  more  nearly  in  her  old  manner 
than  anything  that  Mary  had  yet  seen — "that  is  a  matter 
upon  which  I  have  no  opinion." 

It  was  a  possibility  that  Mary  had  contemplated  as  early 
as  that  first  night  of  all,  when  Paula,  having  sung  his  song, 
had  come  herself  to  find  him  in  Annie's  old  bedroom  where 
she  had  him  hidden  and  with  a  broken  laugh  had  pulled 
him  up  in  her  arms  and  kissed  him,  unaware  that  she  was 
not  alone  with  him.  One  kiss,  as  an  isolated  phenomenon, 
didn't  mean  much,  Mary  allowed,  but  when  a  man  and  a 
woman  who  were  going  to  be  left  alone  together  a  lot, 
started  off  that  way,  they  were  likely  to — get  somewhere. 
And  where  the  man  was  the  composer  of  that  love  song 
and  the  woman  the  singer  of  it,  it  was  almost  a  foregone 
conclusion  that  they  would. 


AN  INTERVENTION  143 

But  this  was  not  the  conclusion  that  she  had  come  to 
when  she  stopped  old  Nat  on  his  way  down-stairs  to  turn 
March  out  of  the  house.  The  evidence,  Rush's  and  Aunt 
Lucile's,  might  seem  to  point  that  way  but  it  didn't,  some- 
how, make  a  convincing  picture.  I  think,  though,  that  in 
any  case,  she  would  have  gone  down  to  see  him. 

He  had  found  himself  a  seat  on  a  black  oak  settee  in  the 
hall  around  the  corner  of  the  stairs  and  his  attitude,  when 
she  came  upon  him,  was  very  like  what  it  had  been  the  other 
time,  bent  forward  a  little,  his  hands  between  his  knees, 
as  if  he  were  braced  for  something. 

"Mrs.  Wollaston  won't  be  able  to  see  you  to-day,"  she 
said.  He  sprang  to  his  feet  and  she  added  instantly,  "I'm 
her  stepdaughter,  Mary  Wollaston.  Won't  you  come  in?" 
Without  waiting  for  an  answer,  she  turned  and  led  the 
way  into  the  drawing-room. 

So  far  it  had  been  rehearsed,  on  her  way  down-stairs, 
even  to  the  chair  in  the  bow  window  which  she  indicated, 
having  seated  herself,  for  him  to  sit  down  in.  She  had 
up  to  that  point  an  extraordinarily  buoyant  sense  of  self- 
possession.  This  left  her  for  one  panicky  instant  when  she 
felt  him  looking  at  her  a  little  incredulously  as  if,  once 
more,  he  wondered  whether  she  were  really  there. 

"I  think,  perhaps,  you  haven't  heard  of  father's  illness," 
she  began — not  just  as  she  had  expected  to.  "Or  did  you 
come  to  ask  about  him  ?" 

"No,"  he  said.  "I  hadn't  heard.  Is  it — yes,  of  course 
it  must  be — serious.  I'm  sorry." 

She  was  struck  by  the  instantaneous  change  in  his  man- 
ner. From  being,  part  of  him,  anyhow,  a  little  remote — • 
wool-gathering  would  have  been  Aunt  Lucile's  term — he 
was,  vividly,  here.  It  wasn't  possible  to  doubt  the  reality 
of  his  concern.  As  a  consequence,  when  she  began  inform- 
ing him  of  the  state  of  things  she  found  herself  pulled  away, 


144  MARY  WOLLASTON 

more  and  more,  from  the  impersonal  phraseology  of  a 
medical  bulletin.  She  told  how  the  attack  had  come  on; 
how  they  had  put  up  a  bed  for  him  in  the  music  room,  where 
there  was  the  most  air,  and  begun  what  it  was  evident  from 
the  first  would  be  a  life-and-death  struggle ;  she  quoted  what 
Rush  had  told  her  when  he  met  the  train.  "I  agree  with 
Rush,"  she  concluded.  "They  let  me  see  him,  for  a  few 
minutes,  this  morning,  just  so  he'd  know  that  I  had  come 
back.  Yet  it  isn't  possible  not  to  believe  that  he  will  get 
well." 

When  she  had  squeezed  away  the  tears  that  had  dimmed 
her  eyes,  she  saw  that  his  own  were  bright  with  them.  "He's 
more  than  just  a  great  man,"  he  said  gravely.  Then,  after 
a  moment's  silence,  "If  there's  anything  I  can  do  ... 
It  would  be  a  great  privilege  to  be  of  service  to  him.  As 
errand  boy,  any  sort  of  helper.  I  had  some  hospital  expe- 
rience at  Bordeaux." 

It  was,  on  the  face  of  it,  just  such  an  offer  as  any  kindly 
disposed  inquirer  would  have  made.  Such  as  Wallace  Hood, 
for  example,  had,  in  fact,  made,  only  rather  more  eloquently 
less  than  an  hour  ago.  But  Mary's  impulse  was  not  to 
answer  as  she  had  answered  Wallace  with  a  mere  polite 
acknowledgment  of  helpless  good  intentions.  In  fact,  she 
could  find,  for  the  moment,  no  words  in  which  to  answer 
him  at  all. 

He  said  then,  "I  mustn't  keep  you." 

Even  in  response  to  that  she  made  no  movement  of 
release.  "There's  nothing,  even  for  me  to  do,"  she  said, 
and  felt  from  the  look  this  drew  from  him  that  he  must, 
incredibly,  have  caught  from  her  some  inkling  of  what  her 
admission  really  meant. 

He  did  not  repeat  his  move  to  go,  nor  speak,  and  there 
was  silence  between  them  for,  perhaps,  the  better  part  of 
a  minute.  It  was  terminated,  startlingly,  for  her,  by  her 


AN  INTERVENTION  145 

brother's  appearance  in  the  doorway.  He  had  on  his  rain- 
coat and  carried  his  hat  and  an  umbrella  in  his  hands. 

"Mary,  I'm  just  going  out"  ...  he  began,  then  broke 
off  short,  stared,  and  came  on  into  the  room.  March  rose, 
but  Mary,  after  one  glance  at  Rush's  face,  sat  back  a  little 
more  deeply  in  her  seat.  Rush  ignored  her  altogether. 

"My  sister  has  been  away  during  the  last  few  weeks," 
he  said  to  March.  It  had,  oddly,  the  effect  of  a  set  speech. 
"If  she  had  not  been,  I'm  sure  she  would  have  told  you,  as 
I  do  now  .  .  ."  He  stumbled  there,  evidently  from  the 
sudden  blighting  sense  that  he  was  talking  like  an  actor — • 
or  an  ass.  "This  isn't  the  time  for  you  to  come  here,"  he 
went  on.  "This  house  isn't  the  place  for  you  to  come. 
When  my  father's  well  enough  to  take  matters  into  his  own 
hands  again,  he'll  do  as  he  sees  fit.  For  the  present  you 
will  have  to  consider  that  I'm  acting  for  him." 

Mary's  eyes  during  the  whole  of  that  speech  never 
wavered  from  March's  face.  There  was  nothing  in  it  at  all 
at  first  but  clear  astonishment,  but  presently  there  came  a 
look  of  troubled  concern  that  gave  her  an  impulse  to  smile. 
Evidently  it  disconcerted  her  brother  heavily  for  at  the  end 
of  an  appalling  silence,  not  long  enough  however,  to  allow 
March  to  get  his  wits  together  for  a  reply,  Rush  turned 
about  abruptly  and  strode  from  the  room.  A  moment  later 
they  heard  the  house  door  close  behind  him. 

The  two  in  the  drawing-room  were  left  looking  at  each 
other.  Then,  "Please  sit  down  again,"  she  said. 


CHAPTER  XI 

NOT  COLLECTABLE 

THE  effect  of  Rush's  interruption  was  rather  that  of  a 
thunderclap,  hardly  more.  Recalling  it,  Mary  remem- 
bered having  looked  again  into  March's  face  as  the  street 
door  banged  shut  to  see  whether  he  was  laughing.  She 
herself  was  sharply  aware  of  the  comic  effect  of  her 
brother's  kicking  himself  out  of  the  house  instead  of  his 
intended  victim,  but  she  could  not  easily  have  forgiven  a 
sign  of  such  awareness  from  March. 

He  had  betrayed  none,  had  tried,  she  thought — his 
amazement  and  concern  had  rendered  him  pretty  near  in- 
articulate— to  tell  her  what  the  look  in  his  face  had  already 
made  evident  even  to  Rush ;  his  innocence  not  only  of  any 
amorous  intent  toward  Paula  but  even  of  the  possibility 
that  any  one  could  have  interpreted  the  relation  between 
them  in  that  way.  He  might  have  managed  some  such 
repudiation  as  that  had  she  not  cut  across  his  effort  with 
an  apology  for  her  brother. 

It  had  been  a  terrible  week  for  them  all,  she  said. 
Especially  for  Rush  and  for  his  Aunt  Lucile,  who  had  been 
here  from  the  beginning.  Even  the  few  hours  since  her 
own  return  this  morning  had  been  enough  to  teach  her 
how  nearly  unendurable  that  sort  of  helplessness  was. 

It  must  have  been  in  this  connection  that  he  told  her 
what  had  not  got  round  to  her  before,  the  case  of  his  sister 
Sarah  whom  they  had  watched  as  one  condemned  to  death 
until  John  Wollaston  came  and  saved  her.  "He  simply 
wouldn't  be  denied,"  March  said.  "He  was  all  alone ;  even 
his  colleagues  didn't  agree  with  him.  And  my  father,  hav- 
ing decided  that  she  was  going  to  die  and  that  this  must, 

146 


NOT  COLLECTABLE  147 

therefore,  be  the  will  of  God,  didn't  think  it  ought  to  be 
tampered  with. 

"I  remember  your  father  said  to  him,  'Man,  the  will 
of  God  this  morning  is  waiting  to  express  itself  in  the  skill 
of  my  hands,'  and  it  didn't  sound  like  blasphemy  either. 
He  carried  father  off,  in  his  apron,  just  as  he  was,  to  the 
hospital  and  I  went  along.  I  scraped  an  acquaintance  after- 
ward with  one  of  the  students  who  had  been  there  in  the 
theatre  watching  him  operate  and  got  him  to  tell  me  about 
it.  They  felt  it  was  a  historic  occasion  even  at  the  time; 
cheered  him  at  the  end  of  it.  And  that  sort  of  virtuosity 
does  seem  worthier  of  cheers  than  any  scraping  of  horse- 
hair over  cat-gut  could  ever  come  to.  I  wonder  how  many 
lives  there  are  to-day  that  owe  themselves  altogether  to 
him  just  as  my  sister  does. — How  many  children  who  never 
could  have  been  born  at  all  except  for  his  skill  and  courage. 
Because,  of  course,  courage  is  half  of  it." 

Upon  Mary  the  effect  of  this  new  portrait  of  her  father 
was  electrifying;  eventually  was  more  than  that — revolu- 
tionary. These  few  words  of  March's  served,  I  think,  in 
the  troubled,  turbid  emotional  relation  she  had  got  into  with 
her  father,  as  a  clarifying  precipitant. 

But  that  process  was  slower;  the  immediate  effect  at- 
tached to  March  himself.  The  present  wonder  was  that  it 
should  have  been  he,  a  stranger,  equipped  with  only  the 
meagerest  chances  for  observation,  who,  turning  his  straying 
search-light  beam  upon  the  dearest  person  to  her  in  the 
world,  should  thus  have  illuminated  him  anew.  Even  after 
he  had  gone  it  was  the  man  rather  than  the  things  he  had 
said  that  she  thought  about. 

Amazingly,  he  had  guessed — she  was  sure  she  had  given 
him  no  hint — at  the  part  Paula  was  playing  in  their  domes- 
tic drama.  It  had  come  pat  upon  what  he  had  told  her  of 
the  lives  her  father  had  plucked  from  the  hand  of  death, 


148  MARY  WOLLASTON 

the  ironic,  "he  saved  others,  himself  he  can  not  save,"  hang- 
ing unspoken  in  their  thoughts. 

"Paula  will  be  fighting  for  his  life,"  he  said.  "Mag- 
nificently. That  must  be  one  of  your  hopes." 

She  had  confirmed  this  with  details.  She  got  the  notion, 
perhaps  from  nothing  more  than  his  rather  thoughtful 
smile,  that  he  comprehended  the  whole  thing,  even  down 
to  Aunt  Lucile.  Though  wasn't  there  a  phrase  of  his, — 
"these  uninhibited  people,  when  it  comes  to  getting  things 
done  .  .  ."  that  slanted  that  way?  Did  that  mean  that 
he  was  one  of  the  other  sort?  Wasn't  your  ability  to  rec- 
ognize the  absence  of  a  quality  or  a  disability  in  any  one 
else,  proof  enough  that  you  had  it  yourself?  It  would 
never,  certainly,  occur  to  Paula  to  think  of  any  one  as  "un- 
inhibited." 

But  the  opposed  adjective  didn't  fit  him.  She  couldn't 
see  him  at  all  as  a  person  tangled,  helpless,  in  webs  of 
his  own  spinning; — neither  the  man  who  had  written  that 
love  song  nor  the  man  who  had  sat  down  in  his  chair  again 
after  Rush  had  slammed  the  door. 

He  wasn't  even  shy  but  he  was,  except  for  that  mo- 
ment when  a  vivid  concern  over  John  Wollaston's  illness 
brought  him  back,  oddly  remote,  detached.  He  might  have 
been  a  Martian,  when  in  response  to  her  leading  he  dis- 
cussed Paula  with  her ;  how  good  a  musician  she  was ;  how 
splendidly  equipped  physically  and  temperamentally  for  an 
operatic  career.  "She  has  abandoned  all  that  now,  I  sup- 
pose," he  said.  "Everything  that  goes  with  it.  She  would 
wish,  if  she  ever  gave  us  a  thought,  that  LaChaise  and  I 
had  never  been  born." 

Mary  would  have  tried  to  deny  this  but  that  the  quality 
and  tone  of  his  voice  told  her  that  he  really  knew  it  and 
that,  miraculously,  he  didn't  care.  She  had  exclaimed  with 


NOT  COLLECTABLE  149 

a  sincerity  struck  out  of  her  by  amazement,  "I  don't  see 
how  you  know  that." 

"Paula's  a  conqueror,"  he  had  answered  simply,  "a — 
compeller.  It's  her  instinct  to  compel.  That's  what  makes 
her  the  artist  she  is.  Without  her  voice  she  might  have 
been  a  tamer  of  wild  beasts.  And,  of  course,  a  great  audi- 
ence that  has  paid  extravagantly  for  its  pleasure  is  a  wild 
beast,  that  will  purr  if  she  compels  it,  snarl  at  her  if  she 
doesn't  manage  to.  She's  been  hissed,  howled  at.  And 
that's  the  possibility  that  makes  cheers  intoxicating.  Left 
too  long  without  something  to  conquer,  she  feels  in  a 
vacuum,  smothered.  Well,  she's  got  something  now;  the 
greatest  thing  in  the  world  to  her, — her  husband's  life. 
She's  flung  off  the  other  thing  like  a  cloak." 

Without,  at  the  moment,  any  sense  of  its  being  an  extra- 
ordinary question,  Mary  asked,  "Are  you  glad?  That  she 
has  forgotten  you,  I  mean." 

She  was  not  able,  thinking  it  over  afterward,  to  recall 
anything  that  could  have  served  as  a  cue  for  so  far-fetched  a 
supposition  as  that.  It  could  have  sprung  from  nothing 
more  palpable  than  the  contrast  suggested  between  Paula, 
the  compeller,  the  dompteitse,  and  the  man  who  had  just 
been  so  describing  her.  He  was  so  very  thin ;  he  was,  if  one 
looked  closely,  rather  shabby,  and  beyond  that,  it  had  struck 
her  that  a  haggard  air  there  was  about  him  was  the  product 
of  an  advanced  stage  of  fatigue, — or  hunger.  But  that  of 
course,  was  absurd.  Anyhow,  not  even  the  sound  of  her 
question  startled  her. 

Nor  did  it  him.  There  was  something  apologetic  about 
his  smile.  "It  is  a  reprieve,"  he  admitted.  "I  left  her  a 
week  ago,"  he  went  on  to  explain, — "it  must  have  been  the 
day  Doctor  Wollaston  fell  ill — on  a  promise  not  to  come 
back  until  I  had  got  this  opera  of  mine  into  the  shape  she 


150  MARY  WOLLASTON 

wants.  I  came  back  to-dayio  tell  her  that  it  can't  be  done — 
not  by  me.  I  have  tried  my  utmost  and  it  isn't  enough.  I 
haven't  improved  it  even  from  her  point  of  view  let  alone 
from  mine.  She  isn't  an  easy  person  to  come  to  with  a  con- 
fession of  failure." 

"She's  spoiling  it,"  Mary  said.  "Why  do  you  let  her?" 
But  March  dissented  from  that.  "If  we  agree  that  the 
thing's  an  opera — and  of  course  that's  what  it  is  if  it's  any- 
thing— then  what  she  wants  it  made  over  into  is  better  than 
what  I  wrote.  She's  trying  to  put  the  Puccini  throb  into 
it.  She's  trying  to  make  better  drama  out  of  it.  LaChaise 
agrees  with  her.  He  said  at  the  beginning  that  I  relied  too 
much  on  the  orchestra  and  didn't  give  the  singers  enough  to 
do.  And,  of  course,  it's  easy  to  see  that  what  a  woman  like 
Paula  said  or  did  would  be  more  important  to  an  audience 
than  anything  that  an  oboe  could  possibly  say.  When  I'm 
with  her,  she — galvanizes  me  into  a  sort  of  belief  that  I  can 
accomplish  the  thing  she  wants,  but  when  I  go  off  alone  and 
try  to  do  it  .  .  ."  He  blinked  and  shook  his  head.  "It 
has  been  a  first-class  nightmare,  for  a  fact,  this  last  week." 
But  Mary  demanded  again.  "Why  do  you  let  her?" 
"I  made  a  good  resolution  a  while  ago,"  he  said.  "It 
was — it  was  the  night  she  sang  those  Whitman  songs.  You 
see  I've  never  been  tied  to  anything ;  harnessed,  you  know. 
Somehow,  I've  managed  to  do  without.  But  I've  had  to  do 
without  hearing,  except  in  my  own  head,  any  of  the  music 
I've  written.  There  was  an  old  tin  trunk  full  of  it,  on 
paper,  that  looked  as  if  it  was  never  going  to  be  anywhere 
else.  Well,  I  came  to  a  sort  of  conviction  after  I  went  away 
from  here  that  night,  that  those  two  facts  were  cause  and 
effect ;  that  unless  I  submitted  to  be  harnessed  I  never  would 
hear  any  of  it.  And  it  seemed  that  night  that  I  couldn't 
manage  to  do  without  hearing  it.  Keats  was  wrong  about 
that,  you  know, — about  unheard  melodies  being  sweeter. 


NOT  COLLECTABLE  151 

They  can  come  to  be  clear  torment.  So  I  decided  I'd  begin 
going  in  harness.  I  suppose  it  was  rather  naive  of  me  to 
think  that  I  could,  all  at  once,  make  a  change  like  that. 
Anyhow,  I  found  I  couldn't  go  on  with  this.  I  brought  it 
around  to-day, — it's  out  there  in  the  hall — to  turn  it  over 
to  Paula  to  do  with  as  she  liked.  That's  why  it  was  so — 
incredible,  when  you  came  down  the  stairs  instead." 

He  sprang  up  then  to  go,  so  abruptly  that  he  gave  her' 
the  impression  of  having  abandoned  in  the  middle,  the  sen- 
tence he  was  speaking.  This  time,  however,  rising  instantly, 
she  released  him  and  in  a  moment  he  was  gone.  There 
had  been  a  word  from  him  about  her  father,  the  expression 
of  "confident  hopes"  for  his  recovery,  and  on  her  part 
some  attempt,  not  successfully  brought  off  she  feared,  to 
assure  him  of  his  welcome  when  he  came  again.  She  didn't 
shake  hands  with  him  and  decided  afterward  that  it  must 
have  been  he  who  had  avoided  it. 

She  was  glad  to  have  him  go  so  quickly.  She  wanted 
him  to  go  so  that  she  could  think  about  him.  It  was  with 
a  rather  bouyant  movement  that  she  crossed  the  room  to 
the  piano  bench  and  very  lightly  with  her  finger-tips  began 
stroking  the  keys,  the  cool  smooth  keys  with  their  orderly 
arrangement  of  blacks  and  whites,  from  which  it  was  pos- 
sible to  weave  such  infinitely  various  patterns,  such  mys- 
terious tissue. 

A  smile  touched  her  lips  over  the  memory  of  the  picture 
her  fancy  had  painted  the  night  Paula  sang  his  songs,  the 
sentimental  notion  of  Paula's  inspiring  him  with  an  occa- 
sional facile  caress  to  the  writing  of  other  love  songs.  She 
might  have  been  a  boarding-school  girl  to  have  thought  of 
that.  She  smiled,  too,  though  a  little  more  tenderly,  over 
his  own  attempt — naive  he  had  called  it — to  go  in  harness, 
like  a  park  hack,  submissive  to  Paula's  rein  and  spur. 
Pegasus  at  the  plow  again.  She  smiled  in  clear  self-derision 


152  MARY  WOLLASTON 

over  her  contemplated  project  of  saving  him  from  PauJa. 
He  didn't  need  saving  from  anybody.  He  was  one  of  those 
spirits  that  couldn't  be  tied.  Not  even  his  own  best  effort 
of  submission  could  avail  to  keep  the  harness  on  his  back. 

It  was  most  curious  how  comfortable  she  had  been  with 
him.  During  the  miserable  month  she  had  spent  at  home 
before  she  went  to  Wyoming  with  the  Corbetts,  she  had 
dreaded  a  second  encounter  with  March  and  had  consciously 
avoided  one.  To  meet  and  be  introduced  as  the  strangers 
they  were  supposed  by  the  rest  of  the  family  to  be,  to 
elaborate  the  pretense  that  this  was  what  they  were — they 
who  had  shared  those  flaming  moments  while  Paula  sang ! — 
would  be  ridiculous  and  disgusting.  But  anything  else,  any 
attempt  to  go  on  from  where  they  had  left  off  was  un- 
thinkable. In  the  privacy  of  her  imagination  she  had 
worked  the  thing  out  in  half  a  dozen  ways,  all  equally  dis- 
tressing. 

She  had  not  made  good  her  resolution  to  quit  thinking 
about  him.  She  was  not  able  and  did  not  even  attempt  to 
dismiss  her  adventure  with  him  as  a  mere  regrettable  folly 
to  be  forgotten  as  soon  as  possible.  It  had  often  come  back 
to  her  during  sleepless  hours  of  the  long  nights  and  had 
always  been  made  welcome.  She  didn't  wish  it  defaced  as 
she  had  felt  it  necessarily  must  be  by  the  painful  anti-climax 
of  a  second  meeting. 

The  impulse  upon  which  she  had  taken  him  out  of  old 
Nat's  hands  was  perhaps  a  little  surprising  now  she  looked 
back  on  it,  but  it  had  not  astonished  her  at  the  time.  Of 
course,  there,  there  was  something  concretely  to  be  done,  an 
injusice  to  be  averted  from  a  possibly  innocent  head.  She 
doubted  though  if  it  had  been  pure  altruism. 

Whatever  its  nature,  the  result  of  it  had  been  altogether 
happy.  She  zuas  glad  she  had  come  down  to  see  him.  There 
need  be  no  misgiving  now  about  the  quality  of  their  future 


NOT  COLLECTABLE  153 

encounters,  were  there  to  be  any  such.  They  were  on  solid 
ground  with  each  other. 

How  had  that  been  brought  about?  How  had  they 
managed  to  talk  to  each  other  for  anyway  fifteen  or  twenty 
minutes  without  either  a  reference  to  their  adventure  or  a 
palpable  avoidance  of  it?  It  wasn't  her  doing.  From  the 
moment  when  she  got  to  the  end  of  the  lines  she  had  re- 
hearsed coming  down  the  stairs,  the  lead  had  been  in  his 
hands.  Indeed,  to  the  latter  part  of  the  talk,  what  she  had 
contributed  was  no  more  than  a  question  or  two  so  flagrantly 
personal  that  they  reminded  her  in  review  of  some  of  her 
childish  indiscretions  with  Wallace  Hood.  How  had  he 
managed  it? 

He  hadn't  been  tactful.  She  acquitted  him  altogether  of 
that.  She  couldn't  have  endured  tact  this  afternoon  from 
anybody.  Of  course,  the  mere  expressiveness  of  his  face 
helped  a  lot.  The  look  he  had  turned  on  Rush  for  example, 
that  had  stopped  that  nerve-racked  boy  in  full  career.  Or 
the  look  he  gave  her  when  he  first  learned  of  her  father's 
illness.  That  sudden  coming  back  from  whatever  his  own 
preoccupation  might  have  been  to  a  vivid  concern  for  her 
father. 

Well,  there,  at  last,  it  was.  That  was  his  quality.  A 
genius  for  more  than  forgetting  himself,  for  stepping  clean 
out  of  himself  into  some  one  else's  shoes.  Wasn't  that  just 
a  long  way  of  saying  imagination  ?  He  had  illuminated  her 
father  for  her  and  in  so  doing  had  given  her  a  ray  of  real 
comfort.  He  had  interpreted  Paula — in  terms  how  different 
from  those  employed  by  Aunt  Lucile !  He  had  comprehended 
Rush  without  one  momentary  flaw  of  resentment.  Last  of 
all,  he  had  quite  simply  and  without  one  vitiating  trace  of 
self-pity,  explained  himself,  luminously,  so  that  it  was  as  if 
she  had  known  him  all  her  life. 

One  thing,  to  be  sure,  she  didn't  in  the  least  understand 


154  MARY  WOLLASTON 

— the  very  last  thing  he  had  said.  "That's  why  it  was  so 
incredible  when  you  came  down  the  stairs  instead."  That 
had  been  to  her,  a  complete  non  sequitur,  an  enigma.  But 
she  was  content  to  leave  it  at  that. 

Such  a  man,  of  course,  could  never — belong  to  any- 
body. He  was  not  collectable.  There  would  always  be 
about  him,  for  everybody,  some  last  enigma,  some  room  to 
which  no  one  would  be  given  the  key.  But  there  was  a 
virtue  even  in  the  fringe  of  him,  the  hem  of  his  garment. 

Was  she  getting  sentimental  ?  No,  she  was  not.  Indeed, 
precisely  what  his  little  visit  had  done  for  her  was  to  effect 
her  release  from  a  tangle  of  taut-drawn  sentimentalities. 
She  hadn't  felt  as  free  as  this,  as  comfortable  with  herself, 
since  she  came  home  with  Rush  from  New  York. 

She  had  no  assurance  that  he'd  come  to  the  house  again 
of  his  own  accord  or  that  Paula  would  send  for  him.  But 
she  was  in  no  mood  to  distress  herself  just  now,  even  with 
that  possibility. 

She  crossed  the  room  and  got  herself  a  cigarette,  and 
with  it  alight  she  returned  to  her  contemplation  of  the  piano 
keyboard.  She  didn't  move  nor  speak  when  she  heard  Rush 
come  in  but  she  kept  an  eye  on  the  drawing-room  door  and 
when  presently  he  entered,  she  greeted  him  with  a  smile  of 
good-humored  mockery.  He  had  something  that  looked 
like  a  battered  school  atlas  in  his  hand. 

"What  do  you  suppose  this  is  ?"  he  asked.  "It  was  lying 
on  the  bench  in  the  hall." 

She  held  out  a  hand  for  it  and  together  they  opened  it 
on  the  lid  of  the  piano  and  investigated. 

"It's  the  manuscript  of  his  opera,"  she  said.  "He 
brought  it  around  to  leave  with  Paula.  To  tell  her  he  had 
done  with  it.  He's  been  trying  to  spoil  it  for  her  but  he 
can't/' 


NOT  COLLECTABLE  155 

"I  suppose  I  made  an  infernal  fool  of  myself,"  he  re- 
marked, after  a  little  silence. 

She  blew,  for  answer,  an  impudent  smoke  ring  up  into 
his  face. 

He  continued  grumpily  to  cover  his  relief  that  she  had 
not  been  more  painfully  explicit, — "I  suppose  I  shall  have 
to  make  up  some  sort  of  damned  apology  to  him." 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said.  "That's  as  you  like.  I  don't 
believe  he'd  insist  upon  it.  He  understood  well  enough." 

He  looked  at  her  intently.  "Has  there  been  any  better 
news  from  father  since  I  went  out  ?"  he  asked. 

She  shook  her  head.  "Except  that  there's  been  none. 
Every  hour  now  that  we  aren't  sent  for  counts.  What 
made  you  think  there  might  have  been  ?" 

He  said  he  didn't  know.  She  looked  a  little  more 
cheerful  somehow,  less — tragic.  Evidently  her  visit  to  the 
Corbetts  had  done  her  good. 

His  eye  fell  once  more  on  the  manuscript.  "Did  he 
go  off  and  forget  that?"  he  asked.  "Or  did  he  mean  to 
leave  it  for  Paula?  And  what  shall  we  do  with  it, — hand 
it  over  to  her  or  send  it  back  ?" 

Thoughtfully  Mary  straightened  the  sheets  and  closed 
the  cover.  "I'll  take  care  of  it  for  him,"  she  said. 


CHAPTER  XII 

HICKORY    HILL 

PNEUMONIA,  for  all  it  is  characterized  by  what  is 
called  a  crisis,  has  no  single  stride  to  recovery,  no  criti- 
cal moment  when  one  who  has  been  in  peril  passes  to  safety. 
Steinmetz  and  Darby  were  determined  that  Mary  and  all 
the  household  should  understand  this  fully.  She  had  way- 
laid them  in  the  hall  as  they  were  leaving  the  house  to- 
gether— this  was  seventy-two  hours  or  so  after  Anthony 
March's  call — and  demanded  the  good  news  she  was  sure 
they  had  for  her.  There  was  a  look  about  them  and  a  tone 
in  their  voices  that  were  perfectly  new. 

They  would  not  be  persuaded  to  say  that  her  father  was 
out  of  danger.  There  was  very  little  left  of  him.  His  heart 
had  been  over-strained  and  this  abnormal  effect  was  now, 
in  due  course,  transferred  to  the  kidneys.  All  sorts  of 
deadly  sequellae  were  lying  in  ambush. 

But  the  more  discouraging  they  were,  the  more  she 
beamed  upon  them.  She  walked  along  with  them  to  the 
door,  slipping  her  arm  inside  Doctor  Darby's  as  she  did  so. 
"If  you  only  knew,"  she  said,  "what  a  wonderful  thing  it  is 
to  have  the  doctors  stop  being  encouraging  and  try  to 
frighten  you,  instead.  Because  that  means  you  really  do 
think  he's  getting  well." 

"The  balance  of  probability  has  swung  to  that  side," 
Steinmetz  admitted  in  his  rather  affected  staccato.  "At  all 
events  he's  out  of  my  beat."  His  beat  was  the  respiratory 
tract  and  his  treatment  the  last  word  in  vaccines  and  serums. 

She  held  Darby  back  a  little.  "Must  we  go  on  feeling," 
she  asked,  "that  anything  could  happen  any  minute?  Or— 

156 


HICKORY  HILL  157 

well,  could  Rush  go  back  to  the  farm?  Graham  Stannard 
has  gone  to  New  York,  I  think,  they're  partners,  you  know, 
so  he  must  be  rather  badly  wanted.  And  this  waiting  is 
hard  for  him." 

Rush  could  go,  of  course,  Darby  assured  her.  "For  that 
matter,"  he  went  on  with  a  quick  glance  at  her,  "why  don't 
you  go  with  him?  Take  your  aunt  along,  too.  For  a  few 
days,  at  least.  You  couldn't  do  better." 

She  demurred  to  this  on  the  ground  that  it  didn't  seem 
fair  to  Paula.  If  there  was  a  period  of  Arcadian  retirement 
down  on  the  books  for  anybody,  it  was  Paula  who  was 
entitled  to  it. 

But  Paula,  as  Darby  pointed  out,  wouldn't  take  it  in  the 
first  place,  and,  surprisingly,  didn't  need  it  in  the  second. 
"She  told  me  just  now  that  she'd  slept  eighteen  hours  out 
of  the  last  twenty-four  and  was  ready  for  anything.  She 
looked  it,  too." 

He  understood  very  well  her  irrepressible  shrug  of  ex- 
asperation at  that  and  interrupted  her  attempt  to  explain 
it.  "It's  another  breed  of  animal  altogether,"  he  said. 
"And  at  that,  I'd  rather  have  had  her  job  than  yours. 
You're  looking  first  rate,  anyhow.  But  your  aunt,  if  she 
isn't  to  break  up  badly,  had  better  be  carried  off  some- 
where." He  glanced  around  toward  Steinmetz  who  had 
withdrawn  out  of  ear-shot.  "There  are  some  toxins,  you 
know,"  he  added,  "that  are  even  beyond  him  and  his  micro- 
scopes." 

Mary  had  meant  to  broach  this  project  at  dinner  but 
changed  her  mind  and  waited  until  Aunt  Lucile  had  with- 
drawn and  she  and  Rush  were  left  alone  over  their  coffee 
cups  for  a  smoke. 

"Poor  Aunt  Lucile!  She  has  aged  years  in  the  last 
three  weeks.  And  it  shows  more,  now  the  nightmare  is 
over,  than  it  did  before." 


158  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"Is  it  over?    Really?"  he  asked. 

"Well,  we  don't  need  miracles  any  more  for  him.  Just 
ordinary  good  care  and  good  luck.  Yes,  I'd  say  the  night- 
mare was  over." 

"Leaving  us  free,"  he '  commented,  "to  go  back  to  our 
own." 

"You  can  go  back  to  the  farm,  anyhow,"  she  said.  "I 
asked  Doctor  Darby,  especially,  and  he  said  so.  He  wants 
me  to  go  along  with  you  and  take  Aunt  Lucile.  Just  for 
a  week  or  so.  Is  there  any  sort  of  place  with  a  roof  over 
it  where  we  could  stay  ?" 

He  said,  "I  guess  that  could  be  managed."  But  his  tone 
was  so  absent  and  somber  that  she  looked  at  him  in  sharp 
concern. 

"You  didn't  mean  that  the  farm  was  your  nightmare,  did 
you?"  she  asked.  "Has  something  gone  terribly  wrong  out 
there?"' 

"Things  have  gone  just  the  way  I  suppose  anybody  but 
a  fool  would  have  known  they  would.  Not  worse  than  that, 
I  guess." 

He  got  up  then  and  went  over  to  the  sideboard,  coming 
back  with  a  decanter  of  old  brandy  and  a  pair  of  big  Eng- 
lish glasses.  She  declined  hers  as  unobtrusively  as  possible, 
just  with  a  word  and  a  faint  shake  of  the  head.  But  it  was 
enough  to  make  him  look  at  her. 

"You  didn't  drink  anything  at  dinner,  either,  did  you?" 
he  asked. 

She  flushed  as  she  said,  "I  don't  think  I'm  drinking,  at 
all,  just  now." 

"Being  an  example  to  anybody?"  he  asked  suspiciously. 

She  smiled  at  that  and  patted  his  hand.  "Oh,  no,  my 
dear.  I've  enough  to  do  to  be  an  example  to  myself.  I 
liked  the  way  it  was  out  at  the  Corbetts'.  They've  gone 
bone-dry.  And, — oh,  please  don't  think  that  I'm  a  prig — 


HICKORY  HILL  159 

I  am  a  little  better  without  it — just  now,  anyway.  Tell  me 
what's  gone  wrong  at  the  farm." 

"This  is  wonderful  stuff,"  he  said,  cupping  the  fragile 
glass  in  his  two  hands  and  inhaling  the  bouquet  from  the 
precious  liquor  in  the  bottom  of  it.  "It's  good  for  night- 
mares, at  any  rate."  After  a  sip  or  two,  he  attempted  to 
answer  her  question. 

"Oh,  I  suppose  we'll  come  out  all  right,  eventually.  Of 
course,  we've  got  to.  But  I  wish  Martin  Whitney  had  done 
one  thing  or  the  other ;  either  shown  a  little  real  confidence 
and  enthusiasm  in  the  thing  or  else  stepped  on  it  and  re- 
fused to  lend  father  the  money." 

"Lend?"  Mary  asked.    "Did  he  have  to  borrow  it?" 

He  dealt  rather  impatiently  with  that  question.  "You 
don't  keep  sixty  or  eighty  thousand  dollars  lying  around 
loose  in  a  checking  account,"  he  said.  "Of  course,  he  had 
to  borrow  it.  But  he  borrowed  it  of  Whitney,  worse  luck 
— and  Whitney  being  an  old  friend,  pulls  a  long  face  over 
it  whenever  we  find  we  need  a  little  more  than  the  original 
figures  showed.  That's  enough  to  give  any  one  cold  feet 
right  ther^. 

"Graham's  father  is  rich,  of  course,  but  he's  tighter 
than  the  bark  on  a  tree.  He's  gone  his  limit  and  he  won't 
stand  for  anything  more.  He  can't  see  that  a  farm  like  that 
is  nothing  but  a  factory  and  that  you  can't  run  it  for  any 
profit  that's  worth  while  without  the  very  best  possible 
equipment.  He  wanted  us  to  pike  along  with  scrub  stock 
and  the  old  tools  and  buildings  that  were  on  the  place  and 
pay  for  improvements  out  of  our  profits.  Of  course,  the 
answer  to  that  was  that  there  wouldn't  be  any  profits.  A 
grade  cow  these  days  simply  can't  earn  her  keep  with  the 
price  of  feed  and  labor  what  it  is.  We  didn't  figure  the 
cost  of  tools  and  modern  buildings  high  enough — there  was 
such  a  devil  of  a  lot  of  necessary  things  that  we  didn't  figure 


160  MARY  WOLLASTON 

on  at  all — and  the  consequence  was  that  we  didn't  put  a 
big  enough  mortgage  on  the  place.  Nowhere  near  what 
it  would  stand.  And  now  that  we  want  to  put  a  second  one 
on,  Mr.  Stannard  howls  like  a  wolf." 

The  mere  sound  of  the  word  mortgage  made  Mary's 
heart  sink.  She  looked  so  woebegone  that  Rush  went  on 
hastily. 

"Oh,  that'll  come  out  in  the  wash.  It's  nothing  to  worry 
about  really,  because  even  on  the  basis  of  a  bigger  invest- 
ment than  we  had  any  idea  of  making  when  we  went  in,  it 
figures  a  peach  of  a  profit.  There's  no  getting  away  from 
that.  That's  not  the  thing  about  it  that's  driving  Graham 
and  me  to  drink." 

He  stopped  on  that  phrase,  not  liking  the  sound  of  it, 
and  in  doubt  about  asking  her  not  to  take  it  literally.  She 
saw  all  that  as  plainly  as  if  she  had  been  looking  through 
an  open  window  into  his  mind.  He  took  another  deliberate 
sip  of  the  brandy,  instead,  and  then  went  on. 

"Why,  it's  the  way  things  don't  happen;  the  way  we 
can't  get  anything  done." 

He  did  not  see  the  sympathetic  hand  she  stretched  out 
to  him;  went  back  to  the  big  brandy  glass  instead,  for 
another  long  luxurious  inhalation  and  a  small  sip  or  two. 
"It's  partly  our  own  fault,  of  course,"  he  went  on,  presently. 
"We've  made  some  fool  mistakes.  But  it  isn't  our  mistakes 
that  are  going  to  beat  us,  it's  the  damned  bull-headed  in- 
competence of  the  so-called  labor  we've  got  to  deal  with." 

He  ruminated  over  that  in  silence  for  a  minute  or  two. 
"They  talk  about  the  inefficiency  of  the  army,"  he  exclaimed, 
"but  I've  been  four  years  in  two  armies  and  I'll  say  that  if 
what  we've  found  out  at  Hickory  Hill  is  a  fair  sample  of 
civilian  efficiency,  I'll  take  the  army  way  every  time.  There 
are  days  when  I  feel  as  if  I'd  like  to  quit ; — go  out  West  and 


HICKORY  HILL  161 

get  a  job  roping  steers  for  Bob  Corbett,  even  if  he  is  bone- 
dry." 

She  thought  if  he  played  any  longer  with  that  brandy 
glass  she  must  cry  out,  but  he  drained  it  this  time  and 
pushed  it  away.  With  an  effort  of  will  she  relaxed  her 
tight  muscles. 

"I  suppose  I  must  have  looked  to  you  like  a  hopeless 
slacker,"  he  said,  "or  you  wouldn't  have  asked  Darby  to 
send  me  back  to  work.  No, — I  didn't  mean  to  put  it  that 
way.  I  look  like  one  to  myself,  that's  all,  when  I  stop  to 
think.  Only  you  don't  know  how  it  has  felt,  this  last  six 
weeks,  to  go  on  getting  tighter  and  tighter  in  your  head 
until  you  feel  as  if  you  were  going  to  burst.  I  went  out  and 
got  drunk,  once, — just  plain,  deliberately  boiled — in  order 
to  let  off  steam.  It  did  me  good,  too,  for  the  time  being." 

She  didn't  look  shocked  at  that  as  he  had  expected  her 
to — gave  him  only  a  rather  wry  smile  and  a  comprehending 
nod.  "We're  all  alike;  that's  the  trouble  with  us,"  she 
said.  "But  you  will  take  us  out  to  Hickory  Hill,  won't 
you?  Aunt  Lucile  and  I.  I'll  promise  we  won't  be  in  the 
way  nor  make  you  any  more  work." 

She  saw  he  was  hesitating  and  added,  "At  that,  perhaps, 
I  may  be  some  good.  I  could  cook  anyhow  and  I  suppose 
I  could  be  taught  to  milk  a  cow  and  run  a  Ford." 

He  laughed  at  that,  then  said  a  little  uncomfortably  that 
this  wasn't  what  he  had  been  thinking  about.  "I  suppose 
you're  counting  on  Graham's  being  in  New  York.  He 
isn't.  At  least,  he  telegraphed  me  that  he'd  be  back  at 
Hickory  Hill  to-morrow  morning.  I  knew  you'd  been  rather 
keeping  away  from  him  and  I  thought  perhaps  .  .  ." 

"No,  that's  all  right."  She  said  it  casually  enough,  but 
it  drew  a  keen  look  of  inquiry  from  him,  nevertheless.  "Oh, 
nothing,"  she  went  on.  "I  mean  I  haven't  made  up  with 


162  MARY  WOLLASTON 

him.  Of  course,  I  never  quarreled  with  him  as  far  as  that 
went.  Only  it's  what  I  meant  when  I  said  just  now  that 
we  were  all  alike,  father  and  you  and  I.  We  all  get  so 
ridicuously — tight  about  things.  Well,  I've  managed  to  let 
off  steam  myself." 

He  patted  her  hand  approvingly.  "That  trip  to  Wyom- 
ing did  you  a  lot  of  good,"  he  observed. — "Or  something 
did." 

"They're  wonderfully  easy  people  to  live  with,  Olive  and 
Bob,"  she  said.  "They're  immensely  in  love  with  each  other 
I  suppose,  but  without  somehow  being  offensive  about  it. 
And  they  have  such  a  lot  of  fun.  Olive  has  a  piebald  cay- 
use,  that  she's  taught  all  the  haute  ecole  tricks.  He  does 
the  statuesque  poses  and  all  the  high  action  things  just  as 
seriously  as  a  thoroughbred  and  he's  so  short  and  homely 
and  in  such  deadly  earnest  about  it  that  you  can  hardly  bear 
it.  You  laugh  yourself  into  stitches  but  you  want  to  cry 
too.  And  Bob  says  he's  going  to  train  a  mule  the  same  way. 
If  he  ever  does  that  pair  will  be  worth  a  million  dollars  to 
any  circus. — Well,  we'll  be  doing  things  like  that  out  at 
Hickory  Hill  some  day.  Because  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
fun  left  in  the  world." 

"We'll  have  some  of  it  this  week,"  he  agreed,  and  in 
this  rather  light-headed  spirit  they  arranged  details. 

The  only  building  at  Hickory  Hill  that  had  been  de- 
signed for  human  habitation  was  the  farm-house  and  it  was 
at  present  fully  occupied  and  rather  more  by  a  camp  cook 
and  his  assistant,  the  farm  manager  and  half  a  dozen  hands. 
The  partners  themselves  slept  in  a  tent.  There  was  also  a 
cook  tent  near  the  house  where  three  meals  a  day  were 
prepared  for  everybody,  including  the  carpenters,  masons, 
concrete  men  and  well  diggers  who  were  working  on  the 
new  buildings.  They  drove  out  in  Fords  from  two  or  three 
near-by  towns  in  time  for  breakfast  and  didn't  go  home 


HICKORY  HILL  163 

till  after  supper.  The  wagon  shed  of  the  old  horse  barn 
served  as  a  mess  hall. 

There  were  some  beds,  though,  two  or  three  spare  ones, 
Rush  was  sure,  that  had  never  been  used.  Given  a  day's 
start  on  his  guests,  he  would  promise  some  sort  of  building 
which,  if  they  would  refrain  from  inquiring  too  closely  into 
its  past,  should  serve  to  house  them. 

"A  wood-shed,"  she  suggested  helpfully,  "or  a  nicely 
swept-out  hennery.  Even  a  former  cow  stable,  at  a  pinch. 
Only  not  a  pig-pen." 

"If  our  new  hog-house  were  only  finished,  you  could  be 
absolutely  palatial  in  it.  But  I  think  I  can  do  better  than 
any  of  those.  You  leave  that  to  me. — Only,  how  about  Aunt 
Lucile?  She's — essential  to  the  scheme,  I  suppose.  Can 
you  deliver  her?" 

"She'll  come  if  it's  put  to  her  right, — as  a  sporting 
proposition.  She  really  is  a  good  sport  you  know,  the  dear 
old  thing.  You  leave  her  to  me." 

"Lord,  I  feel  a  lot  better  than  I  did  when  I  sat  down  to 
dinner,"  he  told  her  when  they  parted  for  the  night,  and 
left  her  reflecting  on  the  folly  of  making  mountains  out 
of  mole-hills. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

LOW  HANGS  THE  MOON 

HE  BROKE  his  promise  to  be  waiting  for  them  Friday 
morning  at  the  farm.  It  was  Graham  who  caught 
sight  of  their  car,  as  it  stopped  in  front  of  the  farm-house, 
and  came  plunging  down  the  bank  to  greet  them  and  explain 
how  unavoidable  it  had  been  that  Rush  should  go  to  Elgin. 

He  was  somewhat  flushed  and  a  little  out  of  breath  but 
he  seemed,  after  the  first  uncomfortable  minute,  collected 
enough.  He  mounted  the  running-board  and  directed  the 
chauffeur  to  drive  on  across  the  bridge  and  fork  to  the 
right  with  the  main  road  up  to  a  small  nondescript  building 
on  the  far  side  of  it. 

It  was  a  part  of  the  farm,  he  explained,  indicating  the 
wilderness  off  to  the  left, — a  part  of  what  must  once  have 
been  a  big  apple  orchard.  Indeed,  exploring  it  yesterday 
for  the  first  time,  he  had  found  a  surprising  number  of  old 
trees,  which,  choked  as  they  were  with  undergrowth,  looked 
as  if  they  were  still  bearing  fruit.  The  building,  which  they 
had  never  even  entered  until  yesterday,  had  served  as  a 
sorting  and  packing  house  for  the  crop,  though  the  old 
part  of  it — paradoxically  the  upper  part — appeared  to  have 
been  built  as  a  dwelling  by  some  pioneer  settler.  A  second 
story  had  been  added  underneath  by  digging  out  the  bank. 

It  stood  well  back  from  the  road,  a  grass  grown  lane 
with  a  turning  circle  leading  to  it.  It  had  what  had  once 
been  a  loading  platform,  wagon  high,  instead  of  a  veranda. 
The  lower  story,  a  single  room  which  they  peered  into 
through  a  crack  in  a  warped  unhinged  door,  seemed  un- 
promising enough,  a  dark  cobwebby  place,  cumbered  with 
wooden  chutes  from  the  floor  above  by  which,  Graham 

164 


LOW  HANGS  THE  MOON  165 

explained,  they  rolled  the  apples  down  into  barrels  after 
they  had  been  sorted  up-stairs.  A  carpenter  had  been  busy 
most  of  the  morning,  he  added,  flooring  over  the  traps  from 
which  these  chutes  led  down. 

Mary,  though,  fairly  cried  out  with  delight,  and  even 
Miss  Wollaston  beamed  appreciation  when  Graham,  having 
led  them  up  the  bank  and  around  to  the  back  of  the  building, 
ushered  them  in,  at  the  ground  level  up  here,  to  the  upper 
story  of  the  building.  There  was  a  fireplace  in  the  north  end 
of  it  with  twin  brick  erections  on  either  side  which  they 
thought  must  have  been  used  for  drying  apples.  The 
opposite  end,  partitioned  off,  still  housed  a  cider  mill  and 
press,  but  they  had  contrived,  he  said,  a  makeshift  bedroom 
out  of  it. 

Along  the  east  side  of  the  room  were  three  pairs  of 
casement  windows  which  commanded  a  view  of  the  greater 
part  of  the  farm ;  across  the  road,  across  Hickory  Creek, 
across  the  long  reach  of  the  lower  pasture  and  the  seem- 
ingly limitless  stretches  of  new  plowed  fields.  The  clump 
of  farm  buildings,  old  and  new,  was  in  the  middle  of  the 
picture.  Over  to  the  left  not  quite  a  mile  away,  behind 
what  looked  like  nothing  more  than  a  fold  in  the  earth 
(the  creek  again,  Graham  explained.  It  swung  an  arc  of 
two  hundred  degrees  or  so,  about  the  main  body  of  their 
tillable  land)  rose  the  heavily  wooded  slopes  of  Hickory 
Hill. 

"We  were  surprised  at  this  place,"  he  said,  "when  we 
opened  it  up  yesterday.  It's  the  best  view  on  the  farm.  It 
will  be  a  fine  place  to  build  a  real  country  house,  some  day, 
if  we  ever  make  money  enough  to  do  that." 

"It  is  a  real  country  house  already,"  Mary  told  him 
briskly.  "You  two,  living  in  a  tent  with  a  lovely  old  place 
like  this  just  waiting  for  you !  Wait  until  Aunt  Lucile  and 
I  have  had  a  day  at  it  and  you'll  see," 


166  MARY  WOLLASTON 

He  looked  as  if  he  believed  her.  Indeed,  he  looked 
unutterable  things,  contemplating  her,  there  in  that  mellow 
old  room, — wrinkling  her  nose  a  little  and  declaring  that 
she  could  still  smell  apples.  But  all  he  said  was  that  he 
supposed  the  roof  leaked,  but  it  couldn't  be  very  bad  because 
everything  seemed  quite  decently  dry  and  not  at  all  musty. 
He  added  that  he  must  be  getting  back  to  work,  but  that 
an  odd-job  man,  capable  more  or  less  of  anything,  was  at 
her  disposal  for  as  long  as  she  wanted  him. 

She  went  with  him  to  the  door  when  he  made  his 
rather  precipitate  departure  and  stood,  after  she  had  waved 
him  a  temporary  farewell,  gazing  up  at  the  soft  sun-bathed 
slope  with  its  aisles  of  gnarled  trees.  She  smiled  at  the 
sight  of  a  decrepit  long-handled  wooden  pump.  She  took  a 
long  breath  of  the  smell  of  the  month  of  May.  Then  she 
turned,  with  Aunt  Lucile,  to  such  practical  matters  as  bed- 
ding, brooms  and  tea-kettles. 

There  was  more  to  do  than  a  first  look  had  led  them  to 
suppose,  and  their  schemes  grew  ambitious,  besides,  as  they 
advanced  with  them,  so  that,  for  all  the  Briarean  prodigies 
of  Bill,  the  odd- job  man,  they  went  to  bed  dog  tired  at 
nine  o'clock  that  night  with  their  labors  not  more  than  half 
complete.  They  slept — Mary  did,  anyhow,  the  deepest  sleep 
she  had  known  in  years. 

She  waked  at  an  unearthly — a  heavenly  hour.  The  thin 
ether-cool  air  was  quivering  with  the  dissonance  of  bird 
calls;  the  low  sun  had  laid  great  slow-moving  oblongs  of 
reddish  gilt  upon  the  brown  walls  of  the  big  room.  (She 
had  left  her  aunt  in  undivided  possession  of  the  extempor- 
ized bed-chamber.)  She  rose  and  opened  the  door  and 
looked  out  into  the  orchard.  But  what  her  eye  came  to  rest 
upon  was  the  old  wooden  pump. 

It  was  a  triumph  of  faith  over  skepticism,  that  pump. 
Graham  had  contemned  it  utterly,  hardly  allowing,  even, 
that  it  was  picturesque,  but  Bill,  the  odd-job  man  had,  with 


LOW  HANGS  THE  MOON  167 

her  encouragement,  spent  a  patient  hour  over  it  and  in  the 
teeth  of  scientific  probability,  lo,  it  had  given  forth  streams 
of  water  as  clear  as  any  that  had  ever  miraculously  been 
smitten  out  of  a  rock.  The  partners  had  forbidden  her  to 
drink  any  of  it  except  boiled,  until  it  had  been  analyzed. 

She  looked  about.  She  had  the  world  to  herself.  So 
she  carried  her  rubber  tub,  her  sponge  and  a  bath-towel  out 
to  the  warped  wooden  platform  and  bathed  en  plein  air, 
water  and  sun  together.  She  came  in,  deliciously  shudder- 
ing, lighted  a  fire,  already  laid,  of  shavings  and  sticks,  put 
the  kettle  on  to  boil  and  dressed.  She  felt — new  born  that 
morning. 

This  sensation  made  the  undercurrent  of  a  long  fully 
filled  day.  She  almost  never  had  time  to  look  at  it  but 
she  knew  it  was  there.  It  enabled  her  to  take  with  equa- 
nimity the  unlooked-for  arrival  (so  far  as  she  and  her  aunt 
were  concerned)  of  Graham's  young  torn-boy  sister,  Sylvia. 
It  made  it  possible  for  her  to  say,  "Why,  yes,  of  course! 
I'd  love  to,"  when  Graham,  along  in  the  afternoon  asked 
her  if  she  wouldn't  go  for  a  walk  over  the  farm  with  him. 
They  spent  more  than  an  hour  at  it,  sitting,  a  part  of  the 
time,  side  by  side  atop  the  gate  into  the  upper  pasture,  yet 
not  even  then  had  the  comfortable  sense  of  pleasant  com- 
panionship with  him  taken  fright.  It  was  a  security  that 
resided,  she  knew,  wholly  in  herself. 

He  was  holding  himself,  obviously,  on  a  very  tight  rein, 
and  it  was  quite  conceivable  that  before  her  visit  ended,  he 
would  bolt.  There  was  a  moment,  indeed — when  he  came 
with  Rush  to  supper  at  the  apple  house  and  got  his  first 
look  at  the  transformation  she  had  wrought  in  it — when 
that  possibility  must  have  been  in  the  minds  of  every  one 
who  saw  his  face. 

She  had  dramatized  the  result  of  her  two  days'  labor 
innocent  of  any  intention  to  produce  an  effect  like  that. 
The  partners  when  they  came  dropping  in  from  time  to 


168  MARY  WOLLASTON 

time  had  learned  nothing  of  her  plans,  seen  none  of  their 
accomplishments,  so  to-night  the  old-fashioned  settle  which 
Bill  had  knocked  together  from  lumber  in  the  packing  room 
and  she  had  stained,  two  of  the  sorting  tables,  fitted  into  the 
corners  beside  the  fireplace  to  make  a  dais,  the  conversion 
of  another  into  a  capital  dining  table  by  the  simple  expedient 
of  lengthening  its  legs,  the  rag  rug,  discovered  in  the 
village,  during  a  flying  trip  with  Sylvia  this  morning  in  her 
car  and  ravished  from  the  church  fair  it  had  been  intended 
for,  the  sacks  of  sheeting  Aunt  Lucile  had  been  sewing 
industriously  all  day,  covered  with  burlaps  and  stuffed  with 
hay  to  serve  as  cushions,  the  cheese-cloth  tacked  up  in 
gathers  over  the  windows  and  hemmed  with  pins, — all  this, 
revealed  at  once,  had  the  surprise  of  a  conjurer's  trick,  or, 
if  one  were  predisposed  that  way,  the  enhancement  of  a 
miracle. 

She  was  a  little  entranced,  herself,  partly  with  fatigue 
for  she  had  put  in,  one  after  the  other,  two  unusually  labori- 
ous days,  but  partly  no  doubt  with  her  own  magic,  with 
this  almost  convincing  simulation  of  a  home  which  she  and 
her  assistants  had  produced.  It  didn't  matter  that  she  had 
gone  slack  and  silent,  because  Sylvia,  who  just  before 
supper  had  shown  a  disposition  to  dreamy  elegiac  melan- 
choly, rebounded,  as  soon  as  she  was  filled  with  food,  to  the 
other  end  of  the  scale  altogether  and  swept  Rush  after  her 
into  a  boisterous  romp,  which  none  of  Aunt  Lucile's  remon- 
strant asides  to  her  nephew  was  effectual  to  quell. 

She  was  an  amazing  creature,  this  product  of  the  latest 
generation  to  begin  arriving  at  the  fringes  of  maturity,  a 
reedy  young  thing,  as  tall  as  Graham,  inches  taller  than 
Rush.  She  had  the  profile  of  a  young  Greek  goddess  and 
the  grin  of  a  gamin.  She  was  equally  at  home  in  a  ball- 
gown— though  she  was  not  yet  out — or  in  a  pair  of  khaki 
riding  breeches  and  an  olive  drab  shirt.  She  was  capable 


LOW  HANGS  THE  MOON  169 

of  assuming  a  manner  that  was  a  genuine  gratification  to 
her  great  aunt  or  one  that  startled  her  father's  stable  men. 
She  read  French  novels  more  or  less  at  random,  (unknown 
to  her  mother.  She  had  a  rather  mischievous  uncle  who 
was  responsible  for  this  development)  and  she  was  still 
deadly  accurate  with  a  snowball.  A  bewildering  compound 
of  sophistications  and  innocence,  a  modern  young  sphinx 
with  a  riddle  of  her  own. 

Mary  watched  her  tussling  and  tumbling  about  with 
Rush,  pondering  the  riddle  but  making  no  great  effort  to 
find  an  answer  to  it.  Was  she  child  or  woman?  To  herself 
what  was  she  ?  And  what  did  Rush  think  about  her  ?  They 
were  evidently  well  established  on  some  sort  of  terms. 
Rush,  no  doubt,  would  tell  you — disgustedly  if  you  sought 
explanation — that  Sylvia  was  just  a  kid.  That  he  was  fond 
of  her  as  one  would  be  of  any  nice  kid  and  that  her  rough 
young  embraces,  her  challenges  and  her  pursuits,  meant 
precisely  what  those  of  an  uproarious  young — well,  nephew, 
say, — would  mean.  Only  his  eagerness  to  go  on  playing 
the  game  cast  a  doubt  upon  that  explanation. 

They  went  out  abruptly  after  a  while,  just  as  it  was 
getting  dark,  to  settle  a  bet  as  to  which  of  them  could  walk 
the  farthest  along  the  top  rail  of  a  certain  old  fence.  Miss 
Wollaston  saw  them  go  with  unconcealed  dismay,  but  it 
was  hard  to  see  how  even  a  conscientious  chaperon  could 
have  prevented  it  so  long  as  the  child's  elder  brother  would 
do  nothing  to  back  her  up.  To  Mary,  half-way  in  her 
trance,  it  didn't  seem  much  to  matter  what  the  relation 
was  or  what  came  of  it.  It  was  a  fine  spring  night  and  they 
were  a  pair  of  beautifully  untroubled  young  animals.  Let 
them  play  as  they  would. 

Their  departure,  did,  however,  arouse  Graham  to  the 
assumption  of  his  duties  as  host  and  he  launched  himself 
into  a  conversation  with  Miss  Wollaston ;  a  fine  example, 


170  MARY  WOLLASTON 

Mary  thought,  of  what  really  good  breeding  means.  Her 
aunt's  questions  about  life  in  the  navy  were  not  the  sort 
that  were  easy  to  answer  pleasantly  and  at  large.  They 
drew  from  him  things  he  must  have  been  made  to  say  a 
hundred  times  since  his  return  and  sometimes  they  were  so 
wide  of  the  mark  that  it  must  have  been  hard  not  to  stare 
or  laugh.  He  must  have  been  wishing,  too,  with  all  his 
might  down  in  the  disregarded  depths  of  his  heart,  that 
the  old  lady  would  yield  to  the  boredom  and  fatigue  that 
were  slowly  creeping  over  her.  Soon!  Before  that  pair 
of  Indians  came  back.  But  by  nothing,  not  even  the  faint- 
est irrepressible  inflection  of  voice  was  that  wish  made 
manifest. 

It  broke  over  Mary  suddenly  that  this  would  never 
happen.  Aunt  Lucile  might  die  at  her  post,  but  she'd  never, 
in  Graham's  presence,  retire  through  a  door  which  was 
known  to  lead  to  her  bedroom.  She  rose  and  going  around 
to  her  aunt's  chair,  laid  a  light  hand  on  her  shoulder.  But 
she  spoke  to  Graham. 

"Let's  go  out  and  bring  in  the  wanderers,"  she  said. 
"Aunt  Lucile  has  had  a  pretty  long  day  and  I  know  she 
won't  be  able  to  go  to  sleep  until  Sylvia  is  tucked  in  for 
the  night." 

When  the  door  had  closed  behind  them  and  they  stood 
where  the  path,  already  faintly  indicated,  led  down  to  the 
road,  he  stopped  with  a  jerk  and  mutely  looked  at  her. 

"Do  you  know  where  that  fence  of  theirs  is?"  she 
asked. 

"Yes,  I  guess  so,"  he  said.  Then — it  was  almost  a  cry — 
"Must  we  go  there ?  Right  away?" 

"I  don't  know  that  we  need."  (Why  should  he  be 
tortured  like  that!  What  did  it  matter  if  the  rigidity  of 
some  of  her  nightmare-born  resolutions  got  relaxed  a  little?) 
"Where  do  you  want  to  go  with  me?" 


LOW  HANGS  THE  MOON  171 

He  didn't  answer  for  a  minute,  but  when  he  did  speak 
his  voice  was  steady  enough.  "There's  a  place  up  on  the 
top  of  this  hill  where  the  trees  open  out  to  the  east,  a  lovely 
place.  I  went  up  there  last  night  after  Rush  had  turned  in. 
There'll  be  a  moon  along  in  a  few  minutes  and  you  can  see 
it  come  up,  from  there.  Could  we  wait  for  it? — I  suppose 
Miss  Wollaston  .  .  ." 

"No,  she'll  be  all  right,"  Mary  said.  "Now  that  she 
thinks  we're  looking  for  them." 

As  she  moved  up  the  slope  she  added,  "I've  a  sort  of 
interest  in  the  moon,  myself,  to-night." 

"Perhaps  if  you'll  take  my  hand — "  he  said  stiffly.  "It  is 
dark  here  under  the  trees." 

Her  single-minded  intention  had  been  to  make  him  a 
little  happier.  She  liked  him  better  to-night  than  ever,  and 
that  was  saying  a  lot.  But  this  elaborate  covering  up  of 
what  he  really  wanted  under  the  pretended  need  of  guiding 
her,  tried  her  patience.  The  pretense  was  for  himself,  too, 
as  much  as  for  her.  He  was  holding  her  off  at  arm's  length 
behind  him  as  if  they  were  scaling  an  Alp ! 

In  the  spirit  of  mischief,  half  irritated,  half  amused,  she 
crowded  up  to  his  side  and  turned  her  hand  so  that  their 
palms  lay  together.  And  she  said  in  a  voice  evenly  matter- 
of-fact,  "That's  nicer,  isn't  it?" 

He  didn't  succeed  in  producing  anything  audible  in 
answer  to  that,  but  he  began  presently,  and  rather  at  ran- 
dom, to  talk.  As  if — she  reflected,  mutinously, — some  fact 
that  must  on  no  account  be  looked  at  would  emerge,  un- 
escapable,  the  moment  he  stopped. 

But  the  bewitching  loveliness  of  the  place  he  led  her  to 
made  amends,  sponged  away  her  irritation,  brought  back  the 
Arcadian  mood  of  the  day.  A  recently  fallen  apple  tree  just 
on  the  crest  of  the  hill,  offered  in  its  crotched  arms  a  seat  for 
both  of  them.  With  an  ease  which  thrilled  her  he  lifted  her 


172  MARY  WOLLASTON 

in  his  hands  to  her  place  and  vaulted  up  beside  her.  His 
arm  (excusably,  again,  for  the  hand  was  seeking  a  hold  to 
steady  him),  crept  around  behind  her. 

Once  more  he  began  to  talk, — of  nature,  of  the  farm,  of 
how  it  was  the  real  way  to  live,  as  we  were  meant  to.  One 
couldn't,  of  course,  cut  off  the  city  altogether.  There  were 
concerts  and  things.  And  the  companionship  of  old  friends. 
Even  at  that  it  would  be  lonely.  They  had  felt  it  already. 
That  was  why  it  was  such  a  marvelous  thing  to  have  her 
here.  She  made  a  different  world  of  it.  Just  as  she  had 
made  what  seemed  like  a  home  out  of  that  old  apple  house. 
No  one  could  do  that  but  a  woman,  of  course  .  .  . 

She  was  no  longer  irritated  by  this.  She  barely  listened, 
beyond  noting  his  circuitous  but  certain  approach  to  the 
point  of  asking  her,  once  more,  to  marry  him. 

Her  body  seemed  drugged  with  the  loveliness  of  the 
night,  with  fatigue,  with  him,  with  the  immediacy  of  him, — 
but  her  mind  was  racing  as  it  does  in  dreams. 

Nature  was  not,  of  course,  the  gentle  sentimentalist 
Graham  was  talking  about,  but  one  did  get  something  out 
of  close  communion  with  her.  A  sense  of  fundamentals. 
She  was  a — simplifier  of  ideas.  Plain  and  straightforward 
even  in  her  enchantments.  That  moon  they  were  waiting 
for  .  .  .  Already  she  was  looking  down  upon  a  pair 
of  lovers,  somewhere, — a  thousand  pairs! — with  her  bland 
unseeing  face.  And  later  to-night,  long  after  she  had  risen 
on  them,  upon  a  thousand  more. 

Of  lovers?  Well  perhaps  not.  Not  if  one  insisted  upon 
the  poets'  descriptions.  But  good  enough  for  nature's 
simple  purposes.  Answering  to  a  desire,  faint  or  impe- 
rious, that  would  lead  them  to  put  on  her  harness.  Take 
on  her  work. 

Anthony  March  had  never  put  on  a  harness.  A  rebel. 
And  for  the  price  of  his  rebellion  never  had  heard  his 


LOW  HANGS  THE  MOON  173 

music,  except  in  his  head.  Clear  torment  they  could  be, 
he  had  told  her,  those  unheard  melodies.  Somehow  she 
could  understand  that.  There  was  an  unheard  music  in  her. 
An  unfulfilled  destiny,  at  all  events,  which  was  growing 
clamorous  as  the  echo  of  the  boy's  passion — if  it  were  but 
an  echo — pulsed  in  her  throat,  drew  her  body  down  by 
insensible  relaxations  closer  upon  his. 

The  moon  came  up  and  they  watched  it,  silent.  The  air 
grew  heavy.  The  call  of  a  screech-owl  made  all  the  sound 
there  was.  She  shivered  and  he  drew  her,  unresisting, 
tighter  still.  Then  he  bent  down  and  kissed  her. 

He  said,  presently,  in  a  strained  voice,  "You  know  what 
I  have  been  asking.  Does  that  mean  yes  ?" 

She  did  not  speak.  The  moon  was  up  above  the  trees, 
yellow  now.  She  remembered  a  great  broad  voice,  singing : 

"Low  hangs  the  moon.  It  rose  late. 

It  is  lagging — O  I  think  it  is  heavy  with  love,  with  love" 

With  a  passion  that  had  broken  away  at  last,  the  boy's 
hands  took  possession  of  her.  He  kissed  her  mouth,  hotly, 
and  then  again;  drew  back  gasping  and  stared  into  her 
small  pale  face  with  burning  eyes.  Her  head  turned  a  little 
away  from  him. 

.     .     .    Whichever  way  I  turn,  0  I  think  you  could  give  me 
My  mate  back  again  if  you  only  would, 
For  I  am  almost  sure  I  see  her  dimly  whichever  way  I  look. 
O  rising  stars!    .    .    . 

The  languor  was  gone.  She  shivered  and  sat  erect,  he 
watching  her  in  an  agony  of  apprehension.  She  looked 
slowly  round  at  him. 

"You  haven't  answered!"  His  voice  broke  over  that 
into  a  sob.  "Will  you  marry  me,  Mary?" 


174  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said  dully,  like  one  struggling  out  of 
a  dream.  "I  will  if  I  can.  I  meant  to  for  a  while,  I  think. 
But  .  .  ." 

He  leaped  to  the  ground  and  stood  facing  her  with 
clenched  hands.  "I  ought  to  be  shot,"  he  said.  "I'm  not  fit 
Vo  touch  you — a  white  thing  like  you.  I  didn't  mean  to. 
Not  like  that.  I  meant  .  .  ." 

She  stared  for  an  instant,  totally  at  a  loss  for  the  mean- 
ing— the  mere  direction  of  what  he  was  trying  to  say.  Then, 
slipping  down  from  the  branch,  she  took  him  by  the  arms. 
"Don't!"  she  cried  rather  wildly.  "Don't  talk  like  that! 
That's  the  last  impossibility.  Listen.  I'm  going  to  tell 
you  why." 

But  he  was  not  listening  for  what  it  might  be.  He  was 
still  morosely  preoccupied  with  his  own  crime.  He  had 
been  a  beast !  He  had  bruised,  once  more,  the  white  petals 
of  a  flower! 

It  was  not  that  her  courage  failed.  She  saw  he  wouldn't 
believe.  That  he  couldn't  be  made  to  believe.  It  was  no 
use.  If  he  looked  at  her  any  longer  like  that,  she  would 
laugh. 

She  buried  her  face  in  her  arms  and  sobbed. 

He  rose  to  this  crisis  handsomely,  waited  without  a  word 
until  she  was  quiet  and  then  suggested  that  they  go  and 
find  Rush  and  Sylvia.  And  until  they  were  upon  the  point 
of  joining  the  other  pair  nothing  more  was  said  that  had 
any  bearing  on  what  had  happened  in  the  apple  tree.  But 
in  that  last  moment  he  made  a  mute  appeal  for  a  chance  to 
say  another  word. 

He  reminded  her  that  she  had  said  she  would  marry  him 
if  she  could.  This  was  enough  for  him.  More  than  he 
deserved.  He  was  going  back  to  the  beginning  to  try  to 
build  anew  what  his  loss  of  self-control  had  wrecked.  She 
need  say  nothing  now.  If  she'd  wait,  she'd  see. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

A  CLAIRVOYANT   INTERVAL 

IT  WAS  still  May  and  the  North  Carolina  mountain-side 
that  John  Wollaston  looked  out  upon  was  at  the  height 
of  its  annual  debauch  of  azalea  blooms,  a  symphonic 
romance  in  the  key  of  rose-color  with  modulations  down 
to  strawberry  and  up  to  a  clear  singing  white.  For  him 
though,  the  invalid,  cushioned  and  pillowed  in  an  easy  chair, 
a  rug  over  his  knees,  these  splendors  and  the  perfume  of 
the  soft  bright  air  that  bathed  them  had  an  ironic  signifi- 
cance. 

He  had  arrived  with  Paula  at  this  paradise  early  in  the 
week,  pretty  well  exhausted  with  the  ordinary  fatigues  of 
less  than  a  day's  journey  in  the  train.  They  were  feeding 
him  boullion,  egg-nogs  and  cream.  On  Paula's  arm  he  had 
managed  this  afternoon,  his  first  walk,  a  matter  of  two 
or  three  hundred  yards  about  the  hotel  gardens,  and  at  the 
end  of  it  had  been  glad  to  subside,  half  reclining  into  this 
easy  chair,  placed  so  that  through  the  open  door  and  the 
veranda  it  gave  upon,  he  could  enjoy  the  view  of  the  color- 
drenched  mountain-side. 

He  had  dismissed  Paula  peremptorily  for  a  real  walk  of 
her  own.  He  had  told  her,  in  simple  truth,  that  he  would 
enjoy  being  left  to  himself  for  a  while.  She  had  taken  this 
assurance  for  an  altruistic  mendacity,  but  she  had  yielded  at 
last  to  his  insistence  and  gone,  under  an  exacted  promise  not 
to  come  back  for  at  least  an  hour. 

It  offered  some  curious  compensations  though,  this 
state  of  helplessness — a  limpidity  of  vision,  clairvoyant 
almost.  For  a  fortnight  he  had  been  like  a  spectator  sitting 
in  the  stalls  of  a  darkened  theatre  watching  the  performance 

175 


176  MARY  WOLLASTON 

upon  a  brilliantly  lighted  stage,  himself — himselves  among 
the  characters,  for  there  was  a  past  and  a  future  self  for 
him  to  look  at  and  ponder  upon.  The  present  self  hardly 
counted.  All  the  old  ambitions,  desires,  urgencies,  which 
had  been  his  impulsive  forces  were  gone — quiescent  any- 
how. He  was  as  sexless,  as  cool,  as  an  image  carved  in 
jade. 

And  he  was  here  in  this  lover's  paradise — this  was  what 
drew  the  tribute  of  a  smile  to  the  humor  of  the  high  gods — 
with  Paula.  And  Paula  was  more  ardently  in  love  with 
him  than  she  had  ever  been  before. 

The  quality  of  that  smile  must  have  carried  over  to  the 
one  he  gave  her  when  she  came  back,  well  within  her 
promised  hour,  from  her  walk.  One  couldn't  imagine  any- 
thing lovelier  or  more  inviting  than  the  picture  she  made 
framed  in  that  doorway,  coolly  shaded  against  the  bright 
blaze  that  came  in  around  her.  She  looked  at  him  from 
there,  for  a  moment,  thoughtfully. 

"I  don't  believe  you  have  missed  me  such  a  lot  after 
all,"  she  said.  "What  have  you  been  doing  all  the  while?'* 

"Crystal-gazing,"  he  told  her. 

She  came  over  to  him  and  took  his  hands,  a  caress 
patently  enough  through  the  nurse's  pretext  that  she  was 
satisfying  herself  that  he  had  not  got  cold  sitting  there. 
She  relinquished  them  suddenly,  readjusted  his  rug  and 
pillows,  then  kissed  him  and  told  him  she  was  going  to  the 
office  to  see  if  there  were  any  letters  and  went  out  again. 
She  was  gone  but  a  moment  or  two ;  returning,  she  dropped 
the  little  handful  which  were  addressed  to  him  into  his  lap 
and  carried  one  of  her  own  to  a  chair  near  the  window. 

He  dealt  idly  with  the  congratulatory  and  well-wishing 
messages  which  made  up  his  mail.  There  was  but  one  of 
them  that  drew  even  a  gleam  of  clearly  focused  intelligence 
from  him.  He  gave  most  of  his  attention  to  Paula.  She 


A  CLAIRVOYANT  INTERVAL  177 

was  a  wonderful  person  to  watch, — the  expressiveness  of 
her,  that  every  nerve  and  muscle  of  her  body  seemed  to 
have  a  part  in.  She  had  opened  that  letter  of  hers  with 
nothing  but  clear  curiosity.  The  envelope  evidently  had 
told  her  nothing.  She  had  frowned,  puzzled,  over  the  signa- 
ture and  then  somehow,  darkened,  sprung  to  arms  as  she 
made  it  out.  She  didn't  read  it  in  an  orderly  way  even 
then;  seemed  to  be  trying  to  worry  the  meaning  out  of 
it,  like  one  stripping  off  husks  to  get  down  to  some  sort  of 
kernel  inside.  Satisfied  that  she  had  got  it  at  last,  she 
dropped  the  letter  carelessly  on  the  floor,  subsided  a  little 
deeper  into  her  chair  and  turned  a  brooding  face  toward  the 
outdoor  light  and  away  from  him. 

"Are  you  crystal-gazing,  too  ?"  he  asked.  Unusually,  she 
didn't  turn  at  his  voice  and  her  own  was  monotonous  with 
strongly  repressed  emotion. 

"I  don't  need  to.  I  spent  more  than  a  week  staring  into 
mine." 

That  lead  was  plain  enough,  but  he  avoided,  deliberately 
though  rather  idly,  following  it  up.  The  rustle  of  paper  told 
her  that  he  had  turned  back  to  his  letters. 

"Anything  in  your  mail  ?"  she  asked. 

"I  think  not.  You  can  look  them  over  and  see  if  I've 
missed  anything.  To  a  man  in  my  disarticulate  situation 
people  don't  write  except  to  express  the  kindness  of  their 
hearts.  Here's  a  letter  from  Mary  designed  to  prevent  me 
from  worrying  about  her.  Full  of  pleasant  little  anecdotes 
about  farm  life.  It's  thoroughly  Arcadian,  she  says.  A 
spot  designed  by  Heaven  for  me  to  rusticate  in  this  sum- 
mer when — when  we  go  back  to  town.  Somehow,  I  never 
did  inhabit  Arcady.  There's  a  letter  from  Martin  Whitney, 
too,  that's  almost  alarmingly  encouraging  in  its  insistence 
that  I  mustn't  worry.  If  only  they  knew  how  little  I  did — 
these  days !" 


178  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"Well,  that's  all  right  then,"  she  said.  "Because  those 
were  Doctor  Darby's  orders.  You  weren't  to  be  excited  or 
worried  about  anything.  But,  John,  is  it  really  true  that  you 
don't?  Not  about  anything?" 

The  fact  that  her  face  was  still  turned  away  as  she 
asked  that  question  gave  it  a  significance  which  could  not 
be  overlooked. 

"It's  perfectly  true,"  he  asserted.  "I  don't  believe  I 
could  if  I  tried.  But  there's  something  evidently  troubling 
you.  Let's  have  it.  Oh,  don't  be  afraid.  You've  no  idea 
what  an — Olympian  position  one  finds  himself  in  when  he 
has  got  half-way  across  the  Styx  and  come  back.  Tell  me 
about  it." 

"You  know  all  about  it  already.  I  told  you  the  first  day 
you  could  talk — that  I  was  going  to  give  up  singing  alto- 
gether except  just  for  you, — when  you  wanted  me  to.  I 
knew  I'd  been  torturing  you  about  it.  I  thought  perhaps 
you'd  get  well  quicker, — want  to  get  well  more — if  you 
knew  that  the  torture  wasn't  to  go  on.  It  was  true  and  it  is 
true.  Perhaps  you  thought  it  was  just  one  of  those  lies  that 
people  tell  invalids — one  of  those  don't-worry  things.  Well, 
is  wasn't. 

"But  you  made  me  promise  I  wouldn't  do  anything — • 
wouldn't  break  my  Ravinia  contract — until  we  could  talk  it 
all  out  together.  Your  temperature  went  up  a  little  that 
afternoon  and  when  Doctor  Darby  asked  me  why,  I  told 
him.  He  said  I  mustn't,  on  any  account,  speak  again  to  you 
about  it  until  you  brought  the  subject  up  yourself.  I  don't 
know  whether  he'd  call  this  bringing  it  up  or  not,  but  any- 
way that's  it.  I've  kept  my  promise  to  you  though,"  she 
concluded.  "I  haven't  written.  They  still  think  I  am  going 
to  sing  this  summer." 

"I  am  very  glad  of  that,"  he  said  quietly.  "I  thought 
the  thing  was  settled  by  our  first  talk.  I  didn't  realize 
that  you  had  taken  it  merely  as  an — adjournment." 


A  CLAIRVOYANT  INTERVAL  179 

She  was  still  turned  rigidly  away  from  him,  but  the  grip 
of  one  of  her  hands  upon  the  arm  of  a  chair  betrayed  the 
excitement  she  was  laboring  under,  while  it  showed  the 
effort  she  was  making  to  hold  it  down. 

"I  didn't  think,  though,"  he  went  on,  "that  that  resolu- 
tion of  yours  to  give  up  your  whole  career, — make  ducks 
and  drakes  of  it,  in  obedience  to  my  whim — was  nothing 
more  than  one  of  those  pious  lies  that  invalids  are  fed  upon. 
I  knew  you  meant  it,  my  dear.  I  knew  you'd  have  done  it 
— then — without  a  falter  or  a  regret." 

"Then  or  now,"  she  said.  "It's  all  the  same.  No,  It 
isn't!  Now  more  than  then.  With  less  regret.  Without  a 
shadow  of  a  regret,  John, — if  it  would  bring  you  back  to 
me." 

The  last  words  were  muffled,  for  she  had  buried  her 
face  in  her  hands. 

He  had  heard  the  ring  of  undisguised  passion  in  her 
voice  without  an  answering  pulse-beat,  sat  looking  at  her 
thoughtfully,  tenderly.  The  reflection  that  occupied  his 
mind  was  with  what  extravagant  joy  he  would  have  re- 
ceived such  an  assurance  only  a  few  weeks  ago.  On 
any  one  of  those  last  days  before  his  illness  fastened  upon 
him ; — the  Sunday  he  had  gone  to  Hickory  Hill  alone 
because  Paula  had  found  she  must  work  with  March  that 
day ;  the  evening  when  he  had  made  his  last  struggle  against 
the  approaching  delirium  of  fever  in  order  to  telephone  for 
an  ambulance  to  get  him  out  of  that  hated  house.  What 
a  curious  compound  of  nerve  ends  and  gland  activities  a 
man's  dreams — that  he  lived  by,  or  died  for — were ! 

She  pulled  him  out  of  his  reverie  by  a  deliberate  move- 
ment of  resolution,  taking  her  hands  away  from  her  face, 
half  rising  and  turning  her  chair  so  that  she  faced  him 
squarely. 

"I  want  to  know  in  so  many  words,"  she  said,  "why 
you're  glad  that  I'm  still  bound  to  that  Ravinia  thing.  You 


180  MARY  WOLLASTON 

seem  to  want  me  to  sing  there  this  summer,  as  much  as  you 
hated  the  idea  of  my  doing  it  before.  Well,  why  ?  Or  is  it 
something  you  can't  tell  me  ?  And  if  I  sing  and  make  a  suc- 
cess, shall  you  want  me  to  go  on  with  it,  following  up  what- 
ever opening  it  offers ;  just  as  if — just  as  if  you  didn't  count 
any  more  in  my  life  at  all  ?" 

Before  he  could  answer  she  added  rather  dryly,  "Doctor 
Darby  would  kill  me  for  talking  to  you  like  this.  You 
needn't  answer  if  it's  going  to  hurt  you." 

"No,"  he  said,  "it  isn't  hurting  me  a  bit.  But  I'll  answer 
one  question  at  a  time,  I  think.  The  first  thing  that 
occurred  to  me  when  you  spoke  of  the  Ravinia  matter  was 
that  I  didn't  want  you  to  break  your  word.  You  had  told 
them  that  they  could  count  on  you  and  I  didn't  want  you,  on 
my  account,  to  be  put  in  a  position  where  any  one  could 
accuse  you  of  having  failed  him.  My  own  word  was  in- 
volved, for  that  matter.  I  told  LaChaise  I  wouldn't  put  any 
obstacles  in  your  way.  Of  course,  I  didn't  contract  lobar 
pneumonia  on  purpose,"  he  added  with  a  smile. 

The  intensity  of  her  gaze  did  not  relax  at  this,  however. 
She  was  waiting  breathlessly. 

"The  other  question  isn't  quite  so  easy  to  answer,"  he 
went  on,  "but  I  think  I  would  wish  you  to — follow  the  path 
of  your  career  wherever  it  leads.  I  shall  always  count  for  as 
much  as  I  can  in  your  life,  but  not — if  I  can  help  it — as  an 
obstacle." 

"Why  ?"  she  asked.  "What  has  made  the  perfectly  enor- 
mous difference?" 

It  was  not  at  all  an  unanswerable  question ;  nor  one, 
indeed,  that  he  shrank  from.  But  it  wanted  a  little  pre- 
liminary reflection.  She  interrupted  before  he  was  ready 
to  speak. 

"Of  course,  I  really  know.  Have  known  all  along.  You 
haven't  forgiven  me." 


A  CLAIRVOYANT  INTERVAL  181 

He  echoed  that  word  with  a  note  of  helplessness. 

"No,"  she  conceded.  "That  isn't  it,  exactly.  I  can't  talk 
the  way  you  and  Mary  can.  I  suppose  you  have  forgiven 
me,  as  far  as  that  goes.  That's  the  worst  of  it.  If  you 
hadn't  there'd  be  more  to  hope  for.  Or  beg  for.  I'd  do 
that  if  it  were  any  good.  But  this  is  something  you  can't 
help.  You're  kind  and  sweet  to  me,  but  you've  just  stopped 
caring.  For  me.  What  used  to  be  there  has  just — gone 
snap.  It's  not  your  fault.  I  did  it  myself." 

"No,"  he  said  quickly.  "That's  where  you're  altogether 
wrong.  You  didn't  do  it.  You  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
doing  of  it." 

She  winced,  visibly,  at  the  implication  that,  whoever  was 
responsible,  the  thing  was  done. 

"Paula,  dearest!"  he  cried,  in  acute  concern.  "Wait! 
There  are  things  that  can't  be  dealt  with  in  a  breath.  That's 
why  I  was  trying  to  think  a  little  before  I  answered." 

Even  now  he  had  to  marshal  his  thoughts  for  a  moment 
before  he  could  go  on.  It  was  too  ridiculous,  that  look  of 
tragic  desperation  she  wore  while  she  waited!  He  averted 
his  eyes  and  began  rather  deliberately. 

"You  are  dearer  to  me  now — at  this  moment,  as  we 
sit  here — than  ever  you've  been  before.  I  think  that's  the 
simple  literal  truth.  This  matter  of  forgiveness — of  your 
having  done  something  to  forfeit  or  to  destroy  my — love 
for  you  .  .  .  Oh,  it's  too  wildly  off  the  facts  to  be  dealt 
with  rationally!  I  owe  you  my  life.  That's  not  a  senti- 
mental exaggeration.  Even  Steinmetz  says  so.  And  you 
saved  it  for  me  at  the  end  of  a  period  of  weeks — months  I 
guess — when  I  had  been  devoting  most  of  my  spare  energies 
to  torturing  you.  Myself,  incidentally,  but  there  was  noth- 
ing meritorious  about  that.  In  an  attempt  to  assert  a — pro- 
prietary right  in  you  that  you  had  never  even  pretended 
to  give  me.  That  I'd  once  promised  you  I  never  would 


182  MARY  WOLLASTON 

assert.  The  weight  of  obligation  I'm  under  to  you  would 
be  absolutely  crushing — if  it  weren't  for  one  thing  that 
relieves  me  of  it  altogether.  The  knowledge  that  you  love 
me.  That  you  did  it  all  for  the  love  of  me." 

She  moved  no  nearer  him.  These  were  words.  There 
was  no  reassurance  for  her  in  them.  One  irrepressible 
movement  of  his  hands  toward  her,  the  mere  speaking  of 
her  name  in  a  voice  warmed  by  the  old  passion,  would 
have  brought  her,  rapturous,  to  his  knees. 

"There's  no  such  thing  as  a  successful  pretense  between 
us,  I  know,"  he  said.  "So  I'll  talk  plainly.  I'm  glad  to. 
I  know  what  it  is  you  miss  in  me.  It's  gone.  Temporarily 
I  suppose,  but  gone  as  if  it  had  never  been.  That's  a — 
physiological  fact,  Paula." 

She  flushed  hotly  at  that  and  looked  away  from  him. 

"I  don't  know  exactly  what  a  soul  is,"  he  went  on.  "But 
I  do  know  that  a  body — the  whole  of  the  body — is  the 
temple  of  it.  It  impenetrates  everything;  is  made  up  of 
everything.  Well,  this  illness  of  mine  has,  for  these  weeks, 
made  an  old  man  of  me.  And  I'm  grateful  to  it  for  giving 
me  a  chance  to  look  ahead,  before  it's  too  late.  I  want  to 
make  the  most  of  it.  Because  you  see,  my  dear,  in  ten  years 
—or  thereabouts — the  course  of  nature  will  have  made  of 
me  what  this  pneumonia  has  given  me  a  foretaste  of.  Ten 
years.  You  will  be — forty,  then." 

She  was  gazing  at  him  now,  fascinated,  in  unwilling 
comprehension.  "I  hate  you  to  talk  like  that,"  she  said. 
"I  wish  you  wouldn't." 

"It's  important,"  he  told  her  crisply.  "You'll  see  that  in 
a  minute,  if  you  will  wait.  Before  very  long — in  a  month 
or  so,  perhaps — I  shall  be,  I  suppose,  pretty  much  the  same 
man  I  was — three  months  ago.  Busy  at  my  profession 
again.  In  love  with  yon  again.  All  my  old  self-assurance 
back ;  the  more  arrogant  if  it  isn't  quite  the  real  thing.  So 


A  CLAIRVOYANT  INTERVAL  183 

now's  the  time,  when  the  fogs  one  moves  about  in  have 
lifted  and  the  horizon  is  sharp,  to  take  some  new  bearings. 
And  set  a  new  course  by  them.  For  both  of  us. 

"There  is  one  fact  sitting  up  like  a  lighthouse  on  a  rock. 
I'm  twenty-four  years  older  than  you.  Every  five  years  that 
we  live  together  from  now  on  will  make  that  difference  more 
important.  When  you're  forty-five — and  you'll  be  just  at 
the  top  of  your  powers  by  then — I  shall  be  one  year  short 
of  seventy.  At  the  end,  you  see,  even  of  my  professional 
career.  And  that's  only  fifteen  years  away.  Even  with 
good  average  luck,  that's  all  I  can  count  on.  It's  strange 
how  one  can  live  along,  oblivious  to  a  simple  sum  in  arith- 
metic like  that." 

She  had  been  on  her  feet  moving  distractedly  about  the 
room.  Now  she  came  around  behind  his  chair  and  gripped 
his  body  in  her  strong  arms. 

"You  shan't  talk  like  that !"  she  said.  "You  shan't  think 
like  that!  I  won't  endure  it.  It's  morbid.  It's  horrible." 

"Oh,  no,  it's  not,"  he  said  easily.  "The  morbidity  is  in 
being  afraid  to  look  at  it.  It  was  morbid  to  struggle  fran- 
tically, the  way  I  did  all  the  spring,  trying  to  resist  the 
irresistible  thing  that  was  drawing  you  along  your  true 
path.  It  was  a  cancerous  egotism  of  mine  that  was  trying 
to  eat  you  up,  live  you  up  into  myself.  That,  thank  God, 
has  been  cut  out  of  me!  I  think  it  has.  Don't  misunder- 
stand me,  though.  I'm  not  going  to  relinquish  anything  of 
you  that  I  can  keep ; — that  I  ever  had  a  chance  to  keep." 

He  took  her  hands  and  gently — coolly — kissed  them. 

"Then  don't  relinquish  anything,"  she  said.  "It's  all 
yours.  Can't  you  believe  that,  John?" 

He  released  her  hands  and  sank  back  slackly  in  his  chair. 
"Victory!"  he  said,  a  note  of  inextinguishable  irony  in  his 
voice.  "A  victory  I'd  have  given  five  years  of  my  life  for 
last  March.  Yet  I  could  go  on  winning  them — a  whole 


184  MARY  WOLLASTON 

succession  of  them — and  they  could  lead  me  to  nothing  but 
disaster." 

She  left  him  abruptly  and  the  next  moment  he  heard  her 
fling  herself  down  upon  his  bed.  When  he  rose  and  dis- 
engaged himself  from  his  rug,  she  said,  over  an  irrepressible 
sob  or  two,  that  he  wasn't  to  mind  nor  come  to  her.  She 
wasn't  going  to  cry — not  more  than  a  minute. 

He  came,  nevertheless,  settled  himself  on  the  edge  of 
the  bed  and  took  possession  of  her  hands  again. 

"I  wouldn't  have  told  you  all  this,"  he  said — "for  you 
don't  need  any  lessons  in  arithmetic,  child — if  I  dared  trust 
myself  to  remember,  after  the  other  thing  had  come  back. 
Now  I'm  committed — don't  you  see? — not  to  play  the  fool, 
tragically  or  ludicrously,  as  the  case  might  be,  trying  to  dis- 
pute the  inevitable.  And  I  shall  contrive  to  keep  a  lot, 
my  dear.  More  than  you  think." 

Later,  the  evening  of  that  same  day,  he  asked  her  what 
was  in  the  letter  that  had  provoked  their  talk.  Did  they  want 
her  back  in  Chicago  for  rehearsals  or  consultations?  Be- 
cause if  they  did  there  was  no  reason  in  the  world  why  she 
should  not  go.  At  the  rate  at  which  he  was  gaining 
strength  there  would  not  be  the  slightest  reason — he  gave 
her  his  professional  word  of  honor — why  she  should  not 
go  back  in  a  day  or  two. 

"I  should  have  to  go  back,"  she  said,  "if  I  were  going  to 
sing  March's  opera.  There  is  such  a  lot  of  work  about 
a  new  production  that  there  would  be  no  time  to  spare." 

"But,"  he  asked,  "isn't  March's  opera  precisely  what  you 
are  going  to  sing?" 

"No,"  she  said  rebelliously.  "It's  not.  There  wasn't 
anything  in  the  contract  about  that.  I'll  carry  out  the  con- 
tract this  summer.  I'll  keep  my  word  and  yours,  since  that 
is  what  you  want  me  to  do.  But  I  won't  sing  'Dolores'  for 
anybody." 


A  CLAIRVOYANT  INTERVAL  185 

He  did  not  press  her  for  the  reason. 

After  a  little  silence,  she  said,  "Lucile  thougnt  I'd 
fallen  in  love  with  him.  So  did  Rush,  I  guess, — and  poor 
old  Nat.  Did  you,  John?" 

"I  tried  to,  hard  enough,"  he  confessed. 

She  stared.    "Tried  to !" 

"That  would  have  been  the  easier  thing  to  fight,"  he 
said.  "There's  nothing  inevitable  about  a  man, — any  man. 
I'd  have  stood  a  chance  at  least,  of  beating  him,  even  though 
he  had  a  twenty-year  handicap  or  so.  But  the  other  thing, 
— well,  that  was  like  the  first  bar  of  the  Fifth  Symphony, 
you  know;  Fate  knocking  at  the  door.  Gear  terror  that  is 
until  one  can  get  the  courage  to  open  the  door  and  invite 
Fate  in." 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE   END  OF  IT 

ABOUT  a  week  later — just  at  the  beginning  of  June,  this 
was — Paula  did  go  back  to  Chicago,  leaving  her  hus- 
band to  go  on  gaining  the  benefit,  for  another  ten  days  or 
so,  of  that  wine-like  mountain  air.  It  was  an  unwelcome 
conviction  that  he  really  wanted  her  to  go,  rather  than  any 
crying  need  for  her  at  Ravinia  that  decided  her  to  leave 
him.  The  need  would  not  be  urgent  for  at  least  another 
fortnight  since  it  had  been  decided  between  her  and  La- 
Chaise  that^  she  should  make  her  debut  in  Tosca,  an  opera 
she  had  sung  uncounted  times. 

Since  their  momentous  conversation  in  which  John  had 
attempted  to  revise  the  fundamentals  of  their  life  together, 
they  had  not  reverted  to  the  main  theme  of  it ;  had  clarified, 
merely,  one  or  two  of  its  more  immediate  conclusions. 
Paula  was  to  carry  out  in  spirit  as  well  as  in  letter  the  terms 
of  her  Ravinia  contract  exactly  as  if  it  were  still  to  be 
regarded  as  the  first  step  of  her  reopened  career.  What 
she  should  do  about  the  second  step  in  case  it  offered  itself 
to  her  was  a  bridge  not  to  be  crossed  until  they  came  to  it. 

John  had  professed  himself  content  to  let  it  remain  at 
that,  but  she  divined  that  there  was  something  hollow  in 
his  profession.  It  was  possible,  of  course,  that  his  restless- 
ness represented  nothing  more  than  a  new  stage  in  his 
convalescence.  It  didn't  seem  possible  that  after  the  candors 
of  that  talk  he  could  still  be  keeping  something  back  from 
her.  Yet  that  was  an  impression  she  very  clearly  got.  Any- 
how, her  presence  was  doing  him  no  good,  and  on  that  un- 
welcome assurance,  she  bade  him  a  forlorn  farewell  and 
went  home. 

186 


THE  END  OF  IT  187 

It  was  a  true  intuition.  John  heaved  a  sigh  of  relief 
when  she  was  gone.  In  his  present  enfeebled  state  she  was 
too  much  for  him.  The  electrical  vitality  of  her  overpowered 
him.  Even  before  his  illness  he  had  had  moments — I  think 
I  have  recorded  one  of  them — when  her  ardent  strength 
paralyzed  him  with  a  sort  of  terror  and  these  moments  were 
more  frequent  now. 

There  was,  too,  a  real  effort  involved  in  presenting  ideas 
to  her  (intellectual  ideas,  if  they  may  be  so  distinguished 
from  emotional  ones).  He  didn't  know,  now,  whether  she 
had  fully  understood  what  he  had  been  driving  at  that  day ; 
whether  anything  had  really  got  through  to  her  beyond  a 
melancholy  realization  that  his  love  had  cooled.  He  had 
always  been  aware  of  this  effort,  but  in  the  days  of  his 
strength  he  hadn't  minded  making  it. 

Now  he  was  conscious  of  wishing  for  some  one  like 
Mary, — indeed,  for  Mary  herself.  They  talked  the  same 
language,  absolutely.  Their  minds  had  the  same  index  of 
refraction,  so  that  thoughts  flashed  back  and  forth  between 
them  effortlessly  and  without  distortion.  He  thought  of  her 
so  often  and  wished  for  her  so  much  during  the  first  two 
days  of  his  solitude  that  it  seemed  almost  a  case  for  the 
psychical  research  people  when  he  got  a  telegram  from  her. 

It  read:  "Aunt  Lucile  worried  you  left  alone  especially 
traveling.  Shall  you  mind  or  will  Paula  if  I  come  down 
and  bring  you  back,  Mary." 

There  was  a  situation  made  clear,  at  all  events.  He 
grinned  over  it  as  he  despatched  his  wire  to  her.  "Perfectly 
unnecessary  but  come  straight  along  so  that  we  can  play 
together  for  a  week  or  two  before  starting  home." 

Play  together  is  just  what  they  did.  Enough  of  his 
strength  soon  came  back  to  make  real  walks  possible  and 
during  the  second  week,  with  a  two-horse  team  and  a  side- 
bar buggy,  they  managed,  without  any  ill  effect  upon  him, 


188  MARY  WOLLASTON 

an  excursion  across  the  valley  and  up  the  opposite  mountain- 
side to  a  log  cabin  road-house  where  they  had  lunch. 

Mary,  a  born  horsewoman,  did  the  driving  herself,  thus 
relieving  them  of  the  impediment  to  real  companionship 
which  a  hired  driver  would  have  been.  In  an  inconsecutive, 
light-hearted  way  difficult  to  report  intelligibly,  they  man- 
aged to  tell  each  other  a  lot.  She  let  him  see,  with  none  of 
the  rhetorical  solemnities  which  a  direct  statement  would 
have  involved,  her  new  awareness  of  his  professional  emi- 
nence. A  dozen  innuendoes,  as  light  as  dandelion  feathers, 
conveyed  it  to  him ;  swift  brush-strokes  of  gesture  and  inflec- 
tion sketched  the  picture  in;  an  affectionate  burlesque  of 
awe  completed  it,  so  that  he  could  laugh  at  her  for  it  as  she 
had  meant  he  should. 

She  told  him  during  their  drive  what  the  source  of  her 
illumination  was;  described  Anthony  March's  visit  on  that 
most  desperate  day  of  all,  the  vividness  of  his  concern  over 
the  outcome  of  the  fight  and  his  utter  unconcern  about  the 
effect  of  it  upon  his  own  fortunes.  She  had  been  reading 
Kipling  aloud,  out  at  the  farm,  to  the  boys  and  Aunt  Lucile 
and  a  memory  of  it  led  her  to  make  a  comparison — heedless 
of  its  absurdity — between  the  composer  and  Kim's  lama. 
"He  isn't,  anyhow,  tied  to  the  'wheel  of  things'  any  more 
than  that  old  man  was." 

"I'd  like  to  have  come  down  that  day  and  heard  him 
talk,"  John  said.  "Because  it's  the  real  thing,  with  him. 
Not  words.  He  wouldn't  be  a  bad  person  to  go  to,"  he 
added  musingly,  "if  one  had  got  himself  into  a  real  impasse 
— or  what  looked  like  one.  Paula  has  chucked  his  opera, 
you  know." 

She  nodded,  evidently  not  in  the  least  surprised  and,  no 
more,  perturbed  by  this  intelligence.  "He  won't  mind  that," 
she  explained.  "The  only  thing  he  really  needs,  in  the 
world,  is  to  hear  his  music,  but  this,  you  see,  wasn't  his  any 


THE  END  OF  IT  189 

more.  He  had  been  trying  to  make  it  Paula's.  He  had 
been  working  over  it  rather  hopelessly,  because  he  had 
promised,  but  it  was  like  letting  him  out  of  school  when  he 
found  that  she  had  forgotten  all  about  him ;— didn't  care  if 
she  never  saw  him  again." 

She  caught,  without  an  explanatory  word,  the  meaning 
of  the  glance  her  father  turned  upon  her,  and  went  straight 
on.  "Oh,  it  seems  a  lot,  I  know,  to  have  found  out  about 
him  in  one  short  talk,  but  there's  nothing — personal  in  that. 
He  doesn't,  I  mean — save  himself  up  for  special  people. 
He's  there  for  anybody.  Like  a  public  drinking  fountain, 
you  know.  That's  why  he  would  be  such  a  wonderful  per- 
son— "to  go  to,  as  you  said.  No  one  could  possibly  monop- 
olize him." 

She  added,  after  a  silence,  "It  seems  a  shame,  when  he 
wants  so  little  that  he  can't  have  that.  Can't  hear,  for 
example,  that  opera  of  his  the  way  he  really  wrote  it." 

"We  owe  him  something,"  her  father  said  thoughtfully. 
"He  got  rather  rough  justice  from  Paula,  anyhow.  I  sup- 
pose a  thing  like  that  could,  perhaps,  be  managed — if  one 
put  his  back  into  it." 

She  understood  instantly,  as  before,  and  quite  without 
exegesis,  the  twinge  of  pain  that  went  across  his  face.  "You 
will  have  a  back  to  put  into  things  again,  one  of  these  days. 
It  wants  only  courage  to  wait  for  it,  quite  patiently  until  it 
comes.  You've  plenty  of  that.  That's  one  of  he  things 
Mr.  March  told  me  about  you,"  she  added  with  the  playful 
purpose  of  surprising  him  again.  "Only  I  happened  to 
know  that  for  myself." 

"It's  more  than  I  can  be  sure  of,"  he  said.  "I've  been 
full  of  bravado  with  Paula,  telling  her  how  soon  I  was  going 
to  be  back  in  harness  again ;  cock-sure  and  domineering  as 
ever,  so  that  she'd  better  make  hay  while  the  sun  shone. 
But  it  was  I,  nevertheless,  who  made  her  go  home  so  that 


190  MARY  WOLLASTON 

she  could  start  to  work — when  the  whistle  blew.  Some  one 
was  going  to  have  to  support  the  family,  I  told  her,  and  it 
didn't  look  as  if  it  were  going  to  be  me." 

This  speech,  though  it  ended  in  jest,  had  begun,  she 
knew,  in  earnest.  He  meant  her  to  understand  that,  and 
left  her  to  judge  for  herself  where  the  dividing  line  fell. 
She  answered  in  a  tone  as  light  as  his,  "Paula  could  do  it 
easily  enough."  But  she  was  not  satisfied  with  the  way  he 
took  it.  The  mere  quality  of  the  silence  must  have  told 
her  something.  She  turned  upon  him  with  sudden  intensity 
and  said,  "Don't  tell  me  you're  worrying — about  three  great 
healthy  people  like  us.  You  have  been,  though.  Whatever 
put  it  into  your  mind  to  spend  half  a  thought  on  that  ?" 

"Why,  it  was  a  letter  from  Martin  Whitney,"  he  said. 
"Oh,  the  best  meant  thing  in  the  world.  Nothing  but 
encouragement  in  it  from  beginning  to  end,  only  it  was 
so  infernally  encouraging,  it  set  me  off.  No,  let  me  talk. 
You're  quite  the  easiest  person  in  the  world  to  tell  things 
to.  I've  been  remiss,  there's  no  getting  away  from  that. 
I've  never  taken  money-making  very  seriously,  it  came  so 
easily.  I've  spent  my  earnings  the  way  my  friends  have 
spent  their  incomes.  Well,  if  I'd  died  the  other  day,  there 
wouldn't  have  been  much  left.  There  would  have  been  my 
life  insurance  for  Paula,  and  enough  to  pay  my  debts,  includ- 
ing my  engagements  for  Rush,  but  beyond  that,  oh,  a  pit- 
tance merely.  Of  course  with  ten  years'  health,  back  at  my 
practise,  even  with  five,  I  could  improve  the  situation  a  lot." 

She  urged  as  emphatically  as  she  dared — she  wanted  to 
avoid  the  mistake  of  sounding  encouraging — that  the  situa- 
tion needed  no  improvement.  The  income  of  fifty  thousand 
dollars  would  take  care  of  Paula,  and  beyond  that, — well,  if 
there  were  ever  two  healthy  young  animals  in  the  world 
concerning  whom  cares  and  worries  were  superfluous,  they 
were  herself  and  Rush. 


THE  END  OF  IT  191 

He  told  her  thoughtfully  that  this  was  where  she  was 
wrong.  "Rush,  to  begin  with,  isn't  a  healthy  young  animal. 
That's  what  I  couldn't  make  Martin  Whitney  understand. 
He's  one  of  the  war's  sacrifices  precisely  as  much  as  if  he 
had  had  his  leg  shot  off.  He  needs  support;  will  go  on 
needing  it  for  two  or  three  years,  financial  as  well  as  moral. 
He  mustn't  be  allowed  to  fail.  That's  the  essence  of  it. 
He's — spent,  you  see;  depleted.  One  speaks  of  it  in  figur- 
ative terms,  but  it's  a  physiological  thing — if  we  could  get 
at  it — that's  behind  the  lassitude  of  these  boys.  It  all  comes 
back  to  that.  That  they're  restless,  irresolute.  That  they 
need  the  stimulus  of  excitement  and  can't  endure  the  drag 
of  routine.  They  need  a  generous  allowance,  my  dear, — 
even  for  an  occasional  failure  in  self-command,  those  two 
boys  out  at  Hickory  Hill." 

She  had  nothing  to  say  to  that,  though  his  pause  gave 
her  opportunity.  A  sudden  surmise  as  to  the  drift  of  that 
last  sentence,  silenced  her.  And  it  was  a  surmise  that  leaped, 
in  the  next  instant,  to  full  conviction.  He  was  pleading 
Graham's  cause  with  her!  Why?  Was  it  something  that 
had  been  as  near  his  heart  as  that,  all  along?  Or  had  some 
one — Rush — or  even  Graham  himself — engaged  his  advo- 
cacy? 

She  said  at  last,  rather  breathlessly  (it  was  necessary  to 
say  something  or  he  would  perceive  that  his  stratagem  had 
betrayed  itself)  :  "Well,  at  the  gloomy  worst,  Rush  is  taken 
care  of.  And  as  for  me,  I'm  not  a  war  sacrifice,  anyhow. 
That's  not  a  possible  conception — even  for  a  worried  con- 
valescent. Did  you  ever  see  anything  as  gorgeous  as  that 
tree,  even  in  an  Urban  stage  setting?" 

"No,"  he  said,  "the  war  wasn't  what  you  were  sacri- 
ficed to." 

She  held  her  breath  until  she  saw  he  wasn't  going  on 
with  that.  But  he  seemed  willing  to  follow  her  lead  to 


192  MARY  WOLLASTON 

lighter  matters,  and  for  the  rest  of  their  excursion  they 
carried  out  the  pretense  that  there  was  nothing  like  a  cloud 
in  their  sky. 

That  evening,  though,  after  she  had  bidden  him  good 
night,  she  changed  her  mind  and  came  back  into  his  room. 
There  had  been  something  wistful  about  his  kiss  that  deter- 
mined her. 

"Which  of  them  wrote  to  you  about  me  ?"  she  asked. 

"Both,"  he  told  her.  "Of  course  I  should  have  known 
you'd  guess.  Forgive  me  for  having  tried  to — manage  you. 
I'll  show  you  both  their  letters  if  you  like.  It's  a  breach  of 
confidence,  of  course,  but  I  don't  know  that  I  could  do 
better." 

"I'll  read  Rush's,"  she  said.    "Not  the  other." 

She  carried  it  over  to  the  lamp,  and  for  a  while  after 
she  had  taken  in  its  easily  grasped  intent  she  went  on  turn- 
ing its  pages  back  and  forth  while  she  sought  for  an  end 
of  the  tangled  skein  of  her  thoughts  to  hold  on  by. 

Finally,  "Do  you  want  me  to  marry  him,  dad?"  she 
asked.  Then,  before  he  could  answer  she  hurried  on.  "I 
mean,  would  it  relieve  you  from  some  nightmare  worry 
about  me  if  I  did  ? — This  has  to  be  plain  talk,  doesn't  it,  if  it 
is  to  get  us  anywhere  ?" 

"That's  a  fair  question  of  yours,"  he  said.  But  he  wasn't 
ready  at  once  with  an  answer.  "It  would  be  such  a  relief, 
provided  you  really  wanted  to  marry  him.  That  goes  to  the 
bottom  of  it,  I  think.  My  responsibility  is  to  make  it 
possible  for  you  to — follow  your  heart.  To  marry  or  not 
as  you  wish.  To  marry  a  poor  man  if  you  wish.  But  if 
Graham  is  your  choice  and  all  that  holds  you  back  from 
him  is  some  remediable  misunderstanding — or  failure  to 
understand  .  .  ." 

"I  don't  know  whether  it's  remediable  or  not,"  she  said ; 
and  added,  "I  told  him  I  would  marry  him  if  I  could.  Did 
he  tell  you  that?" 


THE  END  OF  IT  193 

It  was  a  mistake  to  have  quoted  that  expression  to  her 
father.  He  took  it  just  as  Graham  had.  Of  course!  What 
else  could  he  think?  She  sat  with  clenched  hands  and  a 
dry  throat,  listening  while  he  tried  to  enlighten  what  he  took 
to  be  her  innocent  misunderstanding. 

They  had  never  spoken,  she  realized,  about  matters  of 
sex.  For  anything  he  really  knew  to  the  contrary  she  might 
have  been  as  ignorant  as  a  child.  He  was  actually  talking 
as  one  talks  to  a  child; — kindly,  tolerantly,  tenderly,  but 
with  an  unconscious  touch  of  patronage,  like  one  trying  to 
explain  away — misgivings  about  Santa  Claus!  There  were 
elements,  inevitably,  in  a  man's  love  for  a  woman,  that  a 
young  girl  could  not  understand.  Nothing  but  experience 
could  bring  that  understanding  home  to  her.  This  was 
what  in  one  way  after  another,  he  was  trying  to  convey. 

But  the  intuition  which,  in  good  times  or  bad,  always 
betrayed  their  emotions  to  each  other,  showed  him  that  he 
was,  somehow  missing  the  mark.  Her  silence  through  his 
tentative  little  pauses  disconcerted  him  heavily.  He  ran 
down  at  last  like  an  unwound  clock. 

It  was  only  after  a  long  intolerably  oppressive  silence 
that  she  found  her  voice.  "The  misunderstanding  isn't 
what  you  think,"  she  said.  "Nor  what  Graham  thinks.  It's 
his  misunderstanding,  not  mine.  He  thinks  that  I  am — a 
sort  of  innocent  angel  that  he's  not  good  enough  for.  And 
the  fact  is  that  I'm  not — not  innocent  enough  for  him.  Not 
an  angel  at  all.  Not  even  quite — good." 

But  she  got  no  further.  The  plea  for  comprehension, 
for  an  ear  that  would  not  turn  away  from  her  plain  story, 
never  was  made.  In  a  smother  of  words  he  halted  her. 
Affectionately,  with  a  gentleness  that  achieved  absolute 
finality.  She  was  overwrought.  She  carried  paradox  too 
far.  In  her  innocence  she  used  a  form  of  speech  that  sfaei 
didn't  know  the  meaning  of,  and  should  be  careful  to  avoid. 
Her  troubles,  with  patience,  would  work  themselves  put  in 


194  MARY  WOLLASTON 

the  end.    Meanwhile  let  her  as  far  as  possible  stop  thinking 
about  them. 

But  she  had  got,  during  the  intaken  breath  before  he 
began  to  speak,  a  sensation, — as  sharp  and  momentary  as 
the  landscape  revealed  in  a  lightning  flash, — of  a  sudden 
terror  on  his  part;  as  of  one  finding  himself  on  the  edge  of 
an  abyss  of  understanding.  For  that  one  glaring  instant 
before  he  had  had  time  to  turn  his  face  away  he  had  known 
what  she  meant.  But  he  never  would  look  again.  Never 
would  know. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

FULL  MEASURE 

RAVINIA  is  one  of  Chicago's  idiosyncrasies,  a  ten- 
weeks'  summer  season  of  grand  opera  with  a  full  sym- 
phony orchestra  given  practically  out-of-doors.  Its  open 
pavilion  seats  from  fifteen  hundred  to  two  thousand  people 
and  on  a  warm  Saturday  night,  you  will  find  twice  as  many 
more  on  the  "bleachers"  that  surround  it  or  strolling  about 
under  the  trees  in  the  park.  The  railroad  runs  special  trains 
to  it  all  through  the  season  from  town,  and  crammed  and 
groaning  interurbans  collect  their  toll  for  miles  from  up 
and  down  the  shore. 

It  had  begun  as  an  amusement  park  with  merry-go- 
rounds,  Ferris-wheels  and  such — to  the  scandalized  indig- 
nation of  numerous  super-urban  persons  whose  summer 
places  occupied  most  of  the  district  roundabout.  They  took 
the  enterprise  into  their  own  hands,  abolished  the  calliope, 
put  a  symphony  orchestra  into  the  bandstand  and,  eventually, 
transformed  the  shell  into  a  stage  and  went  in  for  opera ; 
opera  popularized  with  a  blue  pencil  so  that  no  performance 
was  ever  more  than  two  hours  long,  and  at  the  modest  price 
of  fifty  cents. 

Its  forces,  recruited  chiefly  from  among  the  younger 
stars  at  the  Metropolitan,  give  performances  that  want  no 
apologetic  allowance  from  anybody.  It  has  become  an 
institution  of  which  the  town  and  especially  the  North 
Shore  is  boastful. 

Paula  foresaw  no  easy  conquest  here.  Her  social  pres- 
tige, part  of  which  she  enjoyed  as  John  Wollaston's  wife 
and  part  of  which  she  had  earned  during  the  last  four  years 
for  herself,  counted  as  much  against  her  as  it  did  in  her 

195 


196  MARY  WOLLASTON 

favor.  It  was  evident  from  the  way  the  announcements  of 
her  prospective  appearance  at  Ravinia  had  been  elabor- 
ated in  the  society  columns  of  the  newspapers  that  it  would 
arouse  a  lot  of  curiosity.  It  would  be  one  of  the  topics  that 
everybody,  in  the  social-register  sense  of  the  word,  would 
be  talking  about  and  in  order  to  talk  authoritatively  every- 
body— four  or  five  hundred  people  this  is  to  say — would 
have  to  attend  at  least  one  of  her  performances. 

Nothing  less  than  a  downright  unmistakable  triumph 
would  convince  them.  She  was  a  professional  in  the  grain 
and  yet  in  this  adventure  she  would  be  under  the  curse  of 
an  amateur's  status,  a  thing  she  hated  as  all  professionals  do. 

It  was  evidently  from  an  instinct  to  cut  herself  off  as 
completely  as  possible  from  these  social  connections  of  hers 
that  she  rented  for  the  summer,  a  furnished  house  in  the 
village  of  Ravinia,  within  a  mile  or  so  of  the  park.  John 
was  rather  disconcerted  over  this  when  she  told  him  about 
it.  She  greeted  him  with  it  as  an  accomplished  fact  upon 
his  return  to  Chicago  with  Mary.  She  made  a  genuine 
effort  to  explain  the  necessity,  but  explanations  were  not 
in  Paula's  line  and  she  didn't  altogether  succeed. 

She  made  it  clear  enough,  though,  that  she  didn't  want 
to  be  fussed  by  the  attentions  of  friends  or  family,  of  her 
husband  least  of  all.  She  didn't  want  to  be  congratulated 
nor  encouraged.  She  didn't  want  to  be  asked  to  little 
suppers  or  luncheons  nor  to  be  made  the  objective  of  per- 
sonally conducted  tourist  parties  back  stage.  She  didn't 
want  to  be  called  to  the  telephone,  ever,  except  on  matters 
of  professional  business  by  her  Ravinia  colleagues. 

All  of  this,  John  pointed  out,  could  be  accomplished  at 
home.  He,  himself,  could  deal  with  the  telephoners  and  the 
tourists.  This  was  about  all  apparently  that  he  was  going 
to  be  good  for  this  summer;  but  a  watchdog's  duties  he 
could  perform  in  a  highly  efficient  manner. 


FULL  MEASURE  197 

"But  a  home  and  a  husband  are  the  very  first  things  I've 
got  to  forget  about,"  cried  Paula.  "Oh,  can't  you  see  1" 

Darkly  and  imperfectly,  he  did.  The  atmosphere  of  the 
home  in  which  one  has  been  guarded  and  pampered  as  a 
priceless  possession  was — must  be — enervating,  and  to  one 
who  was  screwing  up  her  powers  to  their  highest  pitch  for 
a  great  effort  like  this,  it  would  be  poisonous — malarial! 
He  would  have  been  clearer  about  it,  though,  but  for  the 
misgiving  that,  consciously  or  not,  Paula  was  punishing  him 
for  having  insisted  that  she  carry  her  contract  through.  Or 
— if  that  were  too  harsh  a  way  of  putting  it, — that  she  was 
coquetting  with  him.  Having  told  her  down  there  in  the 
South  that  he  didn't  care  for  her  in  a  loverlike  way,  he 
might  now  have  an  opportunity  of  proving  that  he  did — 
over  obstacles ! 

It  gave  him  a  twinge,  for  a  fact,  but  he  managed  to  ask 
good-humoredly  if  this  meant  that  he  was  to  be  barred  from 
the  whole  show,  from  performances  as  well  as  from  re- 
hearsals and  the  Ravinia  house. 

"I  won't  care,"  she  said  with  a  laugh  of  desperation, 
"after  I've  once  got  my  teeth  in.  But  until  then  .  .  . 
Oh,  I  know  it  sounds  horrible  but  I  don't  want  even  to — 
feel  you  ;  not  even  in  the  fringe  of  it. 

"I'll  tell  you  who  I  would  like,  though,"  she  went  on 
over  a  palpable  hesitation  and  with  a  flush  of  color  rising 
to  her  cheeks.  "I  can't  live  all  alone  up  there  of  course. 
I  could  get  along  with  just  a  maid,  but  it  would  be  easier 
and  nicer  if  I  could  have  some  one  for  a — companion.  And 
the  person  I'd  choose,  if  she'd  do  it,  is  Mary." 

He  said,  not  quite  knowing  whether  to  be  pleased  or  not, 
that  they  could  ask  her  about  it  at  all  events.  They  were 
rather  counting  on  her  out  at  Hickory  Hill  but  he  didn't 
know  that  that  need  matter.  Only  wasn't  Mary — family, 
herself,  a  reminder  of  home  ? 


198  MARY  WOLLASTOX 

"Not  a  bit,"  said  Paula,  with  a  laugh.  "Not  but  what 
she  likes  me  well  enough,"  she  went  on,  trying  to  account 
for  her  preference  (these  Wollastons  were  always  con- 
cerned about  the  whys  of  things)  "but  she  stands  off  a  little 
and  looks  on ;  without  holding  her  breath,  either.  And  then, 
well,  she'd  be  a  sort  of  reminder  of  you,  after  all." 

Put  that  way,  he  couldn't  quarrel  with  it,  though  there 
was  a  challenge  about  it  that  chilled  him  a  little.  Watched 
over  by  his  own  daughter  (this  was  what  it  came  to)  Paula 
would  be  beyond  suspicion — even  of  Lucile. 

Mary,  when  the  scheme  was  put  up  to  her  was  no  less 
surprised  than  John  had  been,  but  she  was  pleased  clear 
through,  and  with  a  clean-cutting  executive  skill  he  had 
hardly  credited  her  with,  she  thought  out  the  details  of  the 
plan  and  revised  the  rest  of  their  summer  arrangements 
to  fit. 

The  Dearborn  Avenue  house  should  be  closed  and  her 
father  should  move  out  to  the  farm.  The  apple  house  was 
now  remodeled  to  a  point  where  it  would  accommodate  him 
as  well  as  Aunt  Lucile  very  comfortably.  The  boys  and  the 
servants  could  live  around  in  tents  and  things.  She'd  want 
only  one  maid  for  the  cottage  at  Ravina  and  the  small  car 
which  she'd  drive  herself. 

The  sum  of  all  the  activities  that  Mary  proposed  for 
herself  added  up  to  a  really  exacting  job;  housekeeper, 
personal  maid,  chauffeur,  chaperon  and  secretary.  It  was 
with  a  rather  mixed  lot  of  emotions  that  John  thought  of 
delivering  her  over  to  be  tied  to  Paula's  chariot  wheels  like 
that.  One  of  the  two  women  who  loved  him  serving  the 
other  in  a  capacity  so  nearly  menial!  The  thought  of  it 
gave  him  an  odd  sort  of  thrill  even  while  he  shrank  from  it. 
Certainly,  he  would  not  have  assented  to  it,  had  it  not  been 
so  unmistakably  what  Mary  herself  wanted.  Her  reasons 
for  wanting  it  he  couldn't  feel  that  he  had  quite  fathomed. 


FULL  MEASURE  199 

There  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  nothing  fine-spun  about 
them.  It  was  a  job  in  the  first  place  and  gave  her,  there- 
fore, she  mordantly  told  herself,  an  excuse  for  continuing  to 
exist.  It  was  an  escape  from  Hickory  Hill.  (Clear  cowardice 
this  was,  she  confessed.  That  situation  would  have  to  be 
met  and  settled  one  way  or  the  other  before  long;  but  her 
dread  of  both  the  possible  alternatives  had  mounted  since 
her  frustrated  attempt  to  confide  in  her  father.)  The  third 
reason  which  she  avowed  to  everybody,  was  simple  excited 
curiosity  for  a  look  into  a  new  world.  The  mystery  and  the 
glamour  of  it  attracted  her.  Paula's  proposal  gave  her  the 
opportunity  to  see  what  these  strange  persons  were  like 
when  they  were  not  strutting  their  little  while  upon  the 
stage. 

Paula,  of  course,  was,  fundamentally,  one  of  them.  It 
was  remarkable  how  that  simple  discovery  interpreted  her. 
When  you  saw  her  surrounded  by  them,  working  and 
quarreling  with  them,  talking  that  horrible  polyglot  of 
French,  Italian  and  English,  which  she  slipped  into  so  easily, 
you  realized  how  exotic  the  environment  of  the  Dearborn 
Avenue  house  must  have  been  to  her  and  how  strong  a 
thing  her  passion  for  John  Wollaston,  to  enable  her  to 
endure  five  years  of  it, — of  finikin  social  observances, — of 
Aunt  Lucile's  standards  of  propriety ! 

Mary  took  real  comfort  in  her  companionship;  found 
an  immense  release  from  emotional  pressure  in  it.  One 
might  quarrel  furiously  with  Paula  (and  it  happened  Mary 
very  nearly  did,  as  shall  be  related  presently,  before  they 
had  been  in  the  cottage  three  days),  but  one  couldn't  pos- 
sibly worry  one's  self  about  her,  couldn't  torture  one's  self 
feeling  things  with  Paula's  nerves.  That  was  the  Wollaston 
trick.  What  frightful  tangles  the  thing  that  goes  by  the 
name  of  unselfishness,  the  attempt  to  feel  for  others,  could 
lead  a  small  group  like  a  family  into ! 


200  MARY  WOLLASTON 

Another  thing  that  helped  was  that  during  the  fortnight 
of  rehearsal  before  the  season  opened,  there  wasn't  time  to 
think.  They  were  pelted  by  perfectly  external  events,  a 
necessity  for  doing  this,  an  appointment  to  do  that,  an  en- 
gagement somewhere  else.  It  was  like  being  caught  out  in 
a  driving  rain.  You  scuttled  along — snatched  a  momentary 
shelter  where  you  could. 

Even  getting  the  clothes  Paula  needed  would  have  filled 
the  time  of  a  woman  of  leisure  to  the  brim.  A  bridal  trous- 
seau would  have  been  nothing  to  it.  But  with  Paula  these 
activities  had  to  be  sandwiched  in  with  daily  rehearsals, — 
long  ones,  too, — hours  with  Novelli  while  she  memorized 
half- forgotten  parts,  interviews  with  reporters,  struggles 
with  photographers,  everything  that  the  diabolic  ingenuity 
of  the  publicity  man  could  contrive.  He,  by  the  way,  re- 
garded Paula  as  his  best  bet  and  lavished  his  efforts  upon 
her  in  a  way  that  stirred  her  colleagues  (rivals,  of  course), 
to  a  frenzied  exasperation,  over  his  sinister  partiality  to  this 
"society  amateur." 

(They  all  but  enjoyed  a  terrible  revenge,  for  as  poetic 
justice  narrowly  missed  having  it,  the  extent  of  her  advance 
publicity  and  the  beauty  of  her  clothes  proved  to  be  the 
rocks  she  went  aground  on.  Only  a  lucky  wave  came  along 
and  floated  her  off  again.) 

Mary's  quarrel  with  Paula,  though  it  never  came  off, — • 
never  for  that  matter  got  through  to  Paula's  consciousness, 
even  as  an  approach  to  one, — had,  all  the  same,  a  chain 
of  consequences  and  so  deserves  to  be  recorded.  The  opera 
management  was  supposed  to  supply  Paula  with  a  piano  and 
they  found  one  already  installed  in  the  Ravinia  house  when 
they  moved  in,  a  small  grand  of  a  widely  advertised  make. 
Paula  dug  half  a  dozen  vicious  arpeggios  out  of  it  and  con- 
demned it  out  of  hand.  Then  in  the  midst  of  a  petulant  out- 
burst which  had,  nevertheless,  a  humorous  savor  (the  man- 


FULL  MEASURE  201 

agement  would  promise  and  pretend  till  kingdom  come. 
Xhey'd  even  take  real  trouble  to  get  out  of  complying  with 
her  simple  request  for  a  new  piano),  she  pulled  herself  up 
short  and  stared  at  Mary. 

"What  idiots  we  are!  I  am,  anyhow.  I'd  forgotten  all 
about  March.  He  can  make  a  piano  out  of  anything. 
When  he's  tuned  this,  I  won't  want  another.  I've  got  his 
telephone  number  somewhere.  You  don't  happen  to  re- 
member it,  do  you? — Why?  What  makes  you  look  like 
that?" 

For  Mary  was  staring  at  her — speechless.  Paula's 
affairs  had  driven  her  own  pretty  well  out  of  her  mind. 
She  had  stopped  thinking  about  Graham.  She'd  given  over 
worrying  about  Rush.  But  she  had  not  forgotten  Anthony 
March.  The  alternative  possibility  that  Paula  might  have 
gone  on  with  his  opera,  that  he  might  have  been,  but  for 
what  her  father  spoke  of  as  rough  justice,  attending  re- 
hearsals of  it,  hearing  that  big  orchestra  making  a  reality 
of  its  unheard  melodies,  had  been  much  in  her  mind.  She 
had  wondered  whether  it  was  not  really  in  Paula's.  Along 
with  a  regret  for  his  downcast  hopes.  He  was,  in  a  way, 
the  ladder  she  had  climbed  by.  Hearing  her  sing  those  won- 
derful songs  of  his  was  what  had  led  LaChaise  to  offer 
her  this  opportunity.  And  Paula  didn't  know,  Mary  was 
sure,  of  anything  that  mitigated  his  disappointment.  To 
her,  he  was  merely  one  who  had  tried  and,  pitiably,  failed. 
She  must,  it  seemed,  have  felt  sorry  about  it  and  Mary  had 
considerately  avoided  all  reference  to  him. 

Now  it  appeared  that  Paula  had  blankly  forgotten  all 
about  him.  Remembered  him  only  when  she  wanted  him  to 
tune  the  piano.  She  callously  proposed  to  exact  this  service 
of  him,  and  if  possible,  over  the  telephone! 

"I  suppose,"  Mary  said,  when  she  had  found  her  voice, 
"that  I  look  the  way  I  feel.  Paula,  you  -wouldn't  do  that !" 


202  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"Why  not?"  Paula  demanded.  And  then  with  a  laugh, 
"I  wouldn't  forget  to  pay  him  this  time.  And  it  would  be 
nice  to  see  him  again,  too.  Because  I  really  liked  him  a 
lot." 

"Well,  if  you  do  like  him,  you  wouldn't,  would  you,  want 
to  do  anything — cruel  to  him?  Anything  that  he  might 
take  as — a  wilful  insult?  Because  it  could  be  taken  like 
that,  I  should  think." 

She  spoke  with  a  good  deal  of  effort.  Paula's  surprise, 
the  incredulous  way  she  had  echoed  the  word  cruel,  the  fact 
that  there  was  still  an  unshaken  good  humor  in  the  look  of 
curiosity  that  she  directed  upon  her  stepdaughter,  all  but 
overwhelmed  Mary  with  a  sudden  wave  of  helpless  anger. 

What  could  one  do  with  a  selfishness  as  insolent  as  that  ? 
What  was  there  to  say  ? 

Paula  got  up,  still  looking  at  her  in  that  puzzled  sort  of 
way,  came  over  to  her  chair,  sat  down  on  the  arm  of  it  and 
took  her  by  the  shoulders. 

"You're  trembling !"  she  said.  "I  suspect  I  am  working 
you  too  hard.  You  mustn't  let  me  do  that,  you  know.  John 
will  never  forgive  me  if  I  do.  Why,  about  March,  did 
you  mean  because  I  wouldn't  sing  his  opera  ?  He  knew  all 
the  time  I  wouldn't  unless  he  could  get  it  right.  And  he 
knew  he  wasn't  getting  it  right.  He  wanted  to  give  it  up 
long  before  he  did,  only  I  wouldn't  let  him.  But  as  for 
being  insulted,  bless  you,  he  isn't  like  that.  And  perhaps 
if  he  came  I  could  get  him  all  the  pianos  out  here  to  keep  in 
tune.  There  must  be  dozens !" 

At  that  Mary  laughed  in  a  recoil  of  genuine  amusement. 
She  could  imagine  that  Anthony  March  would  laugh  him- 
self. In  one  particular  Paula  was  unquestionably  right.  He 
wouldn't  feel  insulted.  He  was  just  the  last  person  in  the 
world  to  be  accessible  to  such  a  petty  emotion. 


FULL  MEASURE  203 

She  returned  Paula's  hug  and  extricated  herself  from 
the  chair. 

"You  needn't  worry  about  me,  at  all  events,"  she  said. 
"I'm  not  tired  a  bit.  But  could  we  worry  a  little  about  Mr. 
March  ?  About  his  opera,  I  mean  ?  Don't  you  suppose  we 
could  get  Mr.  LaChaise  to  put  it  on  ?  The  way  he  originally 
wrote  it. — I  mean  for  somebody  else  to  sing." 

"Fournier  could  sing  it  in  a  rather  interesting  way," 
Paula  remarked  specnlatively.  "Only  I  don't  believe  he'd 
sing  in  English.  Certainly  there's  nobody  else." 

"Perhaps  if  he  saw  the  score    .     .     ."  Mary  began. 

"Gracious!"  Paula  broke  in,  a  little  startled,  not  much. 
"I  haven't  an  idea  where  that  score  is.  I  may  have  sent 
it  back  to  him,  but  I  don't  believe  I  did." 

"No,"  Mary  told  her.  "It's  here.  When  I  closed  up 
the  house,  I  brought  it  along.  He  might  be  interested 
enough  in  it  I  should  think,"  she  persisted,  "if  you  and  Mr. 
LaChaise  told  him  how  good  it  was, — to  learn  it  in  English. 
Or  it  might,  I  suppose, — the  whole  thing  I  mean, — be  trans- 
lated into  French.  There  might,  anyhow,  prove  to  be  some- 
thing we  could  do." 

"Good  heavens,  child !"  Paula  said,  "we're  up  to  the  eyes 
now,  all  three  of  us.  Will  be  for  weeks  as  far  as  that  goes. 
We  simply  couldn't  think  of  it."  Through  a  yawn  she 
added,  "Not  that  it  wouldn't  be  a  nice  thing  to  do  if  we  had 
time." 

Paula's  notion  of  getting  March  to  come  up  and  tune  her 
piano  was  not  damped  at  all  by  the  wet  blanket  of  Mary's 
objection  to  it.  From  town  that  day,  Mary  having  driven 
her  in  for  more  fittings  and  photographers,  Paula  tele- 
phoned to  the  Fullerton  Avenue  house  and  later  told  Mary 
in  an  acutely  dissatisfied  manner  that  she  had  got  simply 
nowhere  with  the  person  with  whom  she  had  talked.  "She 


204  MARY  WOLLASTON 

pretends, — oh,  it  was  his  sister  or  his  mother,  I  suppose, — 
that  they  don't  know  anything  whatever  about  him. 
Haven't  seen  him  for  ever  so  long.  Haven't  an  idea  how  to 
get  word  to  him.  If  only  I  had  time  to  drive  out  there 
.  .  .  But  I  haven't  a  minute  of  course." 

Mary  observed  that  she  didn't  see  what  good  it  would 
do  to  be  told  in  person  what  Paula  had  just  learned  over 
the  telephone.  She  could  drive  out  there  herself  if  there 
was  any  point  in  it,  during  the  hour  when  Paula  was  en- 
gaged with  her  dressmaker. 

Paula  jumped  at  this  suggestion.  She  was  one  of  those 
persons  whom  telephones  never  quite  convince.  So  Mary, 
rather  glad  of  the  errand,  though  convinced  of  its  futility 
so  far  as  Paula's  designs  were  concerned,  drove  out  to  the 
Fullerton  Avenue  house  and  presently  found  herself  in  a 
small  neat  parlor  talking  to  a  neat  old  lady  who  was  not, 
perhaps,  as  old  as  she  looked,  about  Anthony  March. 

For  anything  that  bore  upon  the  obtainability  of  his 
service  for  the  Ravinia  piano  the  telephone  conversa- 
tion would  have  done  as  well.  His  mother  had  seen  him 
for  only  a  short  time,  a  little  more  than  a  week  ago  and 
judged  from  what  he  then  said  that  he  was  upon  the  point 
of  going  away,  though  not  for  a  long  absence — a  month, 
perhaps.  She  had  not  asked  where  he  meant  to  go  and  he 
had  volunteered  nothing.  It  was  possible  that  he  did  not 
know  himself. 

Mary  remained  in  doubt,  for  the  first  five  minutes  or 
so  of  her  call,  whether  the  stiff  guarded  precision  of  this  was 
a  mark  of  hostility  to  the  whole  Wollaston  clan  or  whether 
it  was  nothing  but  undiluted  New  England  reserve.  She 
ventured  a  tentative,  "I  suppose  he  didn't  say  especially  why 
he  was  going,"  and  on  getting  a  bare  negative  in  reply,  went 
on,  a  little  breathlessly : — "I  didn't  mean  that  impertinently ; 
—only  all  of  us  were  very  much  interested  in  him  and  we 


FULL  MEASURE  205 

liked  him  too  well,  especially  father  and  I,  to  be  content  to 
lose  track  of  him.  I  hope  he  wasn't  ill; — didn't  go  away 
because  of  that." 

"He  told  me  that  he  was  not,"  Mrs.  March  answered. 
"Though  if  I  might  have  had  my  way  with  him,  I  would 
have  put  him  to  bed  for  a  week.  However,"  she  added,  with 
a  fine  smile,  "I  never  did  have  my  way  with  him  and 
neither  has  his  father  had  his.  And  I  judge  it  to  be  as 
well  that  we  have  not." 

No,  there  was  no  hostility  about  it.  She  perceived  the 
genuineness  in  her  visitor's  concern  and  was  perhaps  really 
touched  by  it.  But  even  so  she  was  sparing  of  details. 
Anthony  had  never  lived  a  life  regulated  by  rule  and  habit. 
He  worked  at  his  music  much  too  hard  when  the  call,  as  she 
termed  it,  was  upon  him,  and  obviously  quite  forgot  to  take 
proper  care  of  himself.  And  then  he  went  away,  as  on  this 
occasion,  to  recuperate  in  his  own  manner. 

Mary  adventured  again  just  as  she  was  getting  up  to 
take  her  leave.  "It  must  want  a  good  courage,"  she  said, 
"to  let  him  go  like  that ;  not  to  keep  trying,  at  least,  to  hold 
him  back  in  sheltered  ways." 

She  got  a  nod  of  acknowledgment  of  the  truth  of 
this,  but  no  words  at  all.  But  she  found  herself,  afterward, 
in  possession  of  an  impression  so  clear  that  one  would  think 
it  must  have  needed  a  long  exchange  of  unreserved  con- 
fidences to  have  produced  it.  The  man's  mothet  loved  him, 
of  course;  one  might  take  that  for  granted.  And  was 
proud  of  him ;  of  course — perhaps — again.  But  beyond  all 
that,  she  rejoiced  in  him;  in  his  emancipation  from  the 
line  and  precept  which  had  so  tightly  confined  her;  in  his 
very  vagabondage. 

She  was  not  much  in  his  confidence,  though.  Mary  had 
made  that  out  from  the  way  she  had  received  her  own 
resume  of  the  status  of  his  opera.  His  mother  had  known 


206  MARY  WOLLASTON 

nothing  of  his  hopes,  neither  when  Paula  raised  them  up 
nor  later  when  she  cast  them  down.  It  was  odd  about  that 
— and  rather  pitiable.  She  would  have  welcomed  her  son's 
confidences,  Mary  was  sure,  with  so  real  a  sympathy,  if  he 
could  only  have  believed  it.  But  the  crust  of  family  tradi- 
tion was  too  thick,  she  supposed,  to  make  even  the  attempt 
possible. 

This  failure  of  his  fully  to  understand  the  person  tra- 
ditionally the  nearest  and  dearest  to  him  in  all  the  world 
had,  upon  Mary's  mind,  the  effect  of,  somehow,  solidifying 
him ;  making  him  more  completely  human  to  her — where  it 
might  have  been  expected  to  work  the  other  way.  It  proved 
the  last  touch  she  needed  to  quicken  the  concern  she  had 
from  the  beginning  felt  for  him  into  an  entirely  real  thing, 
a  motivating  principle.  If  it  was  possible  to  get  that  opera 
of  his  produced,  she  was  going  to  do  it. 

She  stopped  at  the  Dearborn  Avenue  house  on  her  way 
down-town  to  get  her  little  portable  typewriter  and  carry  it 
out  to  Ravinia  with  her.  In  the  odd  hours  of  the  next 
few  days  she  copied  March's  libretto  in  English,  triple 
spaced,  out  of  his  score  and  this,  with  a  lead  pencil,  she 
took  to  carrying  around  with  her  to  Paula's  rehearsals,  to 
her  dressing-room,  everywhere.  A  phrase  at  a  time,  syllable 
by  syllable,  she  began  putting  it  into  French. 

On  the  last  Saturday  night  in  June  the  Ravinia 
season  opened  with  Tosca  sung  in  Italian ;  Paula  singing  the 
title  part  and  Fournier  as  "Scarpia."  A  veteran  American 
tenor,  Wilbur  Hastings,  an  old  Ravinia  favorite,  sang 
"Cavaradossi."  Taken  as  a  whole,  the  performance  was 
quite  as  good  as  any  one  has  a  right  to  expect  any  opening 
night  to  be.  The  big  audience  which  went  away  good-natur- 
edly satisfied,  had  had  its  moments  of  really  stirring  enthusi- 
asm. Fournier  scored  a  well  deserved  triumph  with  a 
"Scarpia"  that  was  characterized  by  a  touch  of  really  sinister 


FULL  MEASURE  207 

distinction.  Hastings,  incapable  as  he  was  of  subtleties  or 
refinements,  did  as  usual  all  the  obvious  things  pretty  well 
and  got  the  welcome  he  had  so  rightly  counted  upon.  But 
Paula  fell  unmistakably  short  of  winning  the  smashing  suc- 
cess she  had  so  ardently  hoped  for. 

She  did  not,  of  course,  fail.  Wallace  Hood,  to  take  him 
for  a  sample  of  her  admiring  friends,  went  home  assuring 
himself  that  her  success  had  been  all  he  or  any  of  the  rest 
of  them  could  have  wished.  And  he  wrote  that  same  night 
a  letter  to  John  Wollaston  out  at  Hickory  Hill  saying  as 
much.  Her  beauty,  he  told  John,  had  been  a  revelation  even 
to  him  and  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  the  audience  had 
been  deeply  moved  by  it.  Her  acting  also  had  taken  him  by 
surprise.  It  was  a  talent  he  had  not  looked  for  in  her  and 
he  was  correspondingly  delighted  by  this  manifestation  of 
it.  In  the  great  scene  with  Fournier  when  he  stated  the 
terms  of  his  abominable  bargain  to  her,  Wallace  had  hardly 
been  able  to  realize  it  was  Paula  that  he  saw  on  the  stage. 

When  it  came  to  her  singing  (he  knew  John  would  want 
his  most  impartial  honest  judgment) — here  where  he  had 
been  surest  of  her,  she  came  nearest  to  disappointing  him. 
It  was  a  shame,  of  course,  to  subject  a  lovely  voice  like  hers 
to  singing  in  the  great  vacancy  of  all  outdoors,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  forcing  it  into  competition  with  a  shouter  and  bellower 
like  Hastings.  But  he  felt  sure  when  she  was  a  little  better 
accustomed  to  her  surroundings,  she  would  rise  superior 
even  to  these  drawbacks. 

This  was  somewhere  near  the  facts,  though  stated  with 
a  strong  friendly  bias.  Paula  was  nervous,  never  really  got 
into  the  stride  of  her  acting  at  all.  The  strong  discrepancy 
between  Fournier's  methods  and  Hastings'  served  perhaps 
to  prevent  her  getting  into  step  with  either.  And  she  sang 
all  but  badly.  There  had  been  only  one  rehearsal  in  the 
pavilion  and  at  that  she  had  been  content  merely  to  sketch 


208  MARY  WOLLASTON 

her  work  in,  singing  off  the  top  of  her  voice.  When  she 
really  opened  up  at  the  performance,  the  unfamiliar  acoustics 
of  the  place  frightened  her  into  forcing,  with  the  result  that 
she  was  constantly  singing  sharp. 

Paula  herself,  though  disappointed,  didn't  feel  too  badly 
about  it,  knowing  that  all  her  difficulties  were  merely  mat- 
ters of  adjustment,  until  she  read  what  the  critics  said 
about  her  in  the  papers  the  next  morning.  What  they 
said  was  not  on  the  face  of  it,  severe ;— came,  indeed,  to 
much  the  same  thing  as  Wallace  Hood's  verdict.  But  the 
picture  between  the  lines  which  they  unanimously  pre- 
sented, was  of  a  spoiled  beauty,  restless  for  the  publicity 
that  private  life  deprived  her  of,  offering  in  a  winning  man- 
ner to  a  gullible  public,  a  gold  brick. 

Paula  was  furiously  angry  over  this,  justifiably,  too.  Her 
work  had  been  professional  even  in  its  defects  and  deserved 
professional  judgment.  The  case  was  serious,  too,  for  if 
that  notion  of  her  once  got  fairly  planted  in  the  minds  of 
her  public,  it  would  be  almost  impossible  to  eradicate  it. 

But  Anthony  March  had  not  been  mistaken  when  he 
spoke  of  her  as  a  potential  tamer  of  wild  beasts.  Her  anger 
was  no  mere  gush  of  emotions,  to  spend  itself  and  leave 
her  exhausted.  It  was  a  sort  that  hardened  in  an  adaman- 
tine resolution.  The  next  chance  she  got,  she'd  show  them ! 
Unluckily,  she  wasn't  billed  to  sing  again  until  toward  the 
end  of  the  week.  It  happened,  however,  that  the  Sunday 
papers,  taking  away  with  one  hand,  gave  in  a  roundabout 
but  effective  fashion  with  the  other. 

The  opera  billed  for  that  night  was  Pagliacci.  A  young" 
American  baritone  with  a  phenomenal  high  A,  was  to  sing 
"Tonio"  and  a  new  Spanish  soprano  was  cast  for  "Nedda." 
When  this  young  woman  saw  the  Sunday  papers  she,  too, 
went  into  a  violent  rage.  Her  knowledge  of  EngHsh  was 
not  sufficient  to  enable  her  to  draw  any  comfort  from  the 


FULL  MEASURE  209 

subtle  cruelties  which  the  critics  had  inflicted  on  Paula  in 
the  news  section.  But  the  music  and  drama  supplements 
which  had  been  printed  days  before,  devoted  as  they  were 
to  the  opening  of  the  season,  simply  made  Paula  the  whole 
thing.  The  Spanish  young  lady's  rage  was  of  a  different 
quality  from  Paula's.  She  wept  and  stormed.  She  de- 
manded like  Herodias,  the  head  of  that  press  agent  on  a 
charger.  Simply  that  and  nothing  more.  And  when  she 
failed  to  get  it,  she  went  to  bed. 

The  management,  disconcerted  but  by  no  means  at  the 
end  of  its  resources,  decreed  a  change  of  the  bill  to  Lucia. 
They  were  ready  to  go  on  with  Lucia  which  had  been  billed 
for  Tuesday  night.  All  they  needed  was  to  bring  the  scenery 
out  from  town  in  a  truck.  This  they  ordered  done ;  but  at 
five  o'clock,  about  two  miles  south  of  the  park,  the  truck 
went  through  a  bridge  culvert  and  rolled  all  the  way  to  the 
bottom  of  a  ravine.  The  driver  escaped  with  his  life  but 
the  production  of  Lucia  was  smashed  to  splinters. 

Mary  chanced  upon  this  piece  of  information  and 
brought  it  straight  to  Paula.  "Tell  them  to  go  ahead  with 
Pagliacci,  then,"  Paula  said.  "I'll  sing  'Nedda'  myself. 
Get  LaChaise  on  the  phone  and  let  me  talk  to  him." 

She  did  sing  it  without  any  rehearsal  at  all.  And  she 
gave  a  performance  which  for  most  of  the  persons  who 
saw  it,  made  her  the,  and  the  only,  "Nedda";  though— or 
perhaps,  because — she  didn't  give  the  part  quite  its  tra- 
ditional characterization ;  adapted  it  with  the  unscrupulous- 
ness  of  the  artist  to  her  own  purpose. 

Paula's  "Nedda"  was  a  sulky  slattern,  indifferent,  lazy, 
smoldering  with  passion, — dangerous.  The  sensuous 
quality  of  her  beauty  had  never  been  more  apparent  than 
it  was  in  the  soiled  cheap  mountebank  fineries  which  she 
had  worn  for  so  many  performances  of  the  part  in  Europe. 
And  this  beauty,  of  course,  did  a  lot  of  the  work  for  her. 


210  MARY  WOLLASTON 

Explained  the  tragedy  all  by  itself.  And,  indeed,  tragedy 
hung  visibly  over  her  from  the  moment  of  her  first  entrance 
upon  the  stage  in  the  donkey  cart.  She  was  the  sort  of 
woman  men  kill  and  are  killed  for. 

She  played  the  part  with  an  extreme  economy  of  move- 
ment, with  a  kind  of  feline  stillness  which  made  her  oc- 
casional explosions  into  action,  as  when  she  attacked  Tonio 
with  the  whip,  literally  terrifying.  She  sang  it  carelessly 
and  therefore  in  a  manner  absolutely  gorgeous.  She  swept 
them  all,  critics  as  well  as  the  immense  audience,  clean  off 
their  feet. 

Also,  by  way  of  a  foot-note,  the  managerial  announce- 
ment that  Madame  Carresford  had  volunteered  for  the  part 
at  six  o'clock,  to  rescue  them  from  the  necessity  of  clos- 
ing the  park  and  was  to  sing  it  absolutely  without  rehearsal, 
exploded  for  all  time  the  notion  that  there  was  anything  of 
the  amateur  about  her. 

"You  can  do  anything,"  LaChaise  told  her  as  she  came 
out  into  the  wings.  And  he  kissed  her  on  both  cheeks 
rather  solemnly,  in  the  manner  of  one  conferring  a  decora- 
tion. In  full  measure  pressed  down  and  running  over, 
that  was  how  Paula's  success  came  to  her. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  WAYFARER 

BY  THE  time  Paula  had  got  back  to  her  dressing-room 
after  the  long  series  of  tumultuous  curtain  calls  was 
over,  the  rush  of  her  friends  to  express  their  congratula- 
tions in  person  had  begun.  After  the  Tosca  performance 
she  had  been  adamant  about  seeing  anybody  but  to-night 
with  a  laugh  she  said,  "I  don't  care.  For  a  few  minutes.  If 
they're  people  I  really  know." 

So  Mary  took  her  station  beside  the  Rhadamanthus  at 
the  stockade  gate — in  a  proper  opera-house,  he  would  have 
been  the  stage  door-keeper — to  pick  out  the  sheep  from  the 
goat-like  herd  of  the  merely  curious  who,  but  for  firm 
measures,  would  have  stormed  the  place.  Those  who  came 
down  again,  pushed  out  by  the  weight  of  new  arrivals, 
lingered  about  the  gate  talking  things  over  with  Mary.  It 
amused  her  to  see  how  radically  their  attitude  had  changed. 
Such  people  as  the  Averys,  the  Cravens  and  the  Byrnes,  who 
in  a  social  way  had  known  Paula  well,  seemed  to  regard  her 
now  as  a  personage  utterly  remote,  translated  into  another 
world  altogether.  And  when  they  asked  about  John  Wollas- 
ton,  as  most  of  them  did,  there  was  an  undertone  almost  of 
commiseration  about  their  inquiries,  though  on  the  surface 
this  didn't  go  beyond  an  expressed  regret  that  he  hadn't 
been  here  to  witness  the  triumph. 

Mary  drove  them  all  away  at  last,  even  the  lingerers  in 
Paula's  dressing-room,  left  her  safely  in  the  hands  of  her 
dresser  and  went  out  into  the  automobile  park  to  get  her 
car.  Coming  up  softly  across  the  grass  and  reaching  in 
to  turn  on  the  lights,  she  was  startled  to  discover  that  there 

211 


212  MARY  WOLLASTON 

was  a  man  in  it.  But  before  she  had  time  more  than  to 
gasp,  she  recognized  him  as  her  father. 

"I  didn't  want  to  push  my  way  in  with  the  mob,"  he 
explained,  after  apologizing  for  having  frightened  her. 
"The  car,  when  I  spotted  it,  seemed  a  safe  place  to  wait. 
And  the  privacy  of  it,"  he  added,  "will  be  grateful,  too, 
since  I'm  not  perfectly  sure  that  Paula  won't  refuse  outright 
to  see  me." 

Mary  smiled  at  this  and  said  she  hoped  he  hadn't  missed 
the  performance. 

"No,"  he  told  her  somberly,  "I  didn't  miss — any  of  it." 
Then  on  a  different  note,  "Now  we'll  see  whether  those 
dogs  of  critics  won't  change  their  tune." 

"Paula  herself  changed  the  tune,"  Mary  observed. 
Then,  "She's  longing  to  see  you,  of  course.  And  there's  no 
reason  why  you  should  wait.  No  one's  with  her  now  except 
her  dresser." 

She  led  the  way,  without  giving  him  a  chance  to  demur, 
to  the  gate  to  the  stockade  and  turned  him  over  to  the  gate- 
keeper. 

"Please  take  Doctor  Wollaston  up  to  his  wife's  dressing- 
room,"  she  said.  And  with  a  momentary  pleasure  in  having 
evaded  introducing  him  as  Madame  Car  res  ford's  husband, 
she  turned  away  and  went  back  to  the  car. 

For  the  moment  the  spectacle  of  her  father  in  the  role  of 
a  young  lover  touched  her  no  more  acutely  than  with  a  mild 
half-humorous  melancholy.  She  even  paid  the  tribute  of  a 
passing  smile  to  the  queer  reversal  of  their  roles,  her  own 
and  his.  She  was  more  like  a  mother  brooding  over  the 
first  love-affair  of  an  adolescent  son.  It  was  so  young  of 
him,  younger,  she  believed,  than  any  act  she  herself  could 
be  capable  of,  to  have  come  to  Paula's  performance  without 
letting  her  know  and  waited  shyly  alone  in  the  dark  while 
the  herd  of  her  acquaintances  crowded  in  and  monopolized 


THE  WAYFARER  213 

her.  Pathetically  young,  almost  intolerably  pathetic  in  a 
man  in  his  middle  fifties.  She  wondered  if  he  had  come  up 
for  Tosca  the  night  before  and  gone  away  without  a  word. 

She  had  spoken  quite  without  authority  in  assuring  him 
of  Paula's  welcome.  Paula  had  not,  she  thought,  spoken  of 
him  once  either  in  connection  with  her  disappointment  the 
night  before  or  with  her  triumph  to-night.  Yet  that  he 
would  get  a  lover's  welcome  she  had  very  little  doubt.  It 
was  his  moment  certainly.  Paula  left  alone  up  there  at 
last,  sated  with  an  overwhelming  success,  tired,  re- 
laxed .  .  . 

With  an  effort  of  will  Mary  settled  herself  a  little  more 
deeply  in  the  seat  behind  the  wheel  and  lighted  a  cigarette. 
She  hated  having  to  wait,  having  to  be  found  waiting  when 
they  came  down  together.  She  wished  she  could  just — dis- 
appear. It  wasn't  possible,  of  course. 

It  was  not  very  long  before  they  came  down.  "She 
says  I  may  stay  two  days,"  John  told  Mary  as  they  squeezed 
into  their  seats  in  the  little  roadster.  "Then,  relentlessly, 
she's  going  to  turn  me  out."  But  his  voice  was  beyond 
disguise  that  of  a  lover  who  has  prospered. 

Mary  drove  them  in  almost  unbroken  silence  all  the  way, 
down  the  ravine  road  and  up  through  the  woods  to  the  house 
in  the  village.  Then  she  went  on  with  the  car  to  their 
garage  which  stood  in  a  yard  of  a  neighbor,  two  or  three 
doors  away.  She  rejected  with  curt  good-humor  her 
father's  offer  to  help  her  with  this  job.  It  was  what  she 
always  did  by  herself,  she  said,  and  took  a  momentary  per- 
verse pleasure,  which  she  despised  herself  for,  in  the  obvious 
fact  that  this  troubled  him. 

Back  in  the  cottage  living-room,  ten  minutes  later  per- 
haps, she  found  him  alone  and  heard  then,  the  explanation 
of  his  having  come.  They  had  got  the  Sunday  papers  out 
at  Hickory  Hill  as  usual  in  the  middle  of  the  morning  but 


214  MARY  WOLLASTON 

had  found  no  reference  to  the  performance  of  Tosca  the 
night  before.  John  had  spent  a  good  part  of  the  day  fret- 
ting over  the  absence  of  any  news  as  to  how  Paula's  ven- 
ture had  succeeded  and  puzzling  over  the  lack  of  it  in  the 
papers.  Then  the  obvious  explanation  had  struck  one  of 
the  boys,  that  the  papers  that  came  out  to  Hickory  Hill  on 
Sunday  were  an  early  edition. 

He  had  had  old  Pete  drive  him  straight  into  town,  at 
that,  and  there  he  had  found  the  news-stand  edition  con- 
taining the  criticisms.  The  unfairness  of  them  had  dis- 
turbed him  greatly.  Orders  or  no  orders,  he  hadn't  been 
able  to  endure  the  thought  of  leaving  Paula  to  suffer  under 
the  sting  of  a  sneer  like  that  without  making  at  least  an 
effort  to  comfort  her.  He  had  driven  out  to  Ravinia 
without  any  idea  that  she  was  to  sing  again  that  night ;  had 
been  told  of  it  at  the  park  where  he  had  stopped  for  the 
purpose  of  picking  up  some  one  who  could  conduct  him  to 
her  house.  Learning  that  she  was  about  to  sing  again,  he 
had  exerted  all  his  will  power  and  waited  until  this  second 
ordeal  should  be  over. 

"It  was  as  much  one  for  me  as  it  could  have  been 
for  her,"  he  concluded.  "I  don't  know  what  stage  fright 
is,  but  vicarious  stage  fright  is  the  devil.  I  never  was  so 
terrified  in  my  life.  I  hope  nobody  I  knew  saw  me.  I  took 
pains  they  shouldn't,  for  I  must  have  looked  like  a  ghost." 

"There's  nothing  the  matter  with  your  looks  now,"  she 
told  him.  "Hickory  Hill  must  be  just  the  place  for  you." 

"It  would  be,"  he  assented,  "if  it  were  possible  for  me 
to  be  whole-heartedly  there.  By  the  way,  we've  got  a  visitor. 
Anthony  March." 

She  felt  herself  flush  at  that  with  clear  pleased  surprise. 
"Oh,  that's  as  nice  as  possible,"  she  said.  "But  how  in  the 
world  did  it  happen?  How  did  you  find  him?  Paula  was 
trying  to  and  couldn't." 


THE  WAYFARER  215 

"Was  she?"  Her  father's  voice,  she  thought,  flattened 
a  little  on  the  question.  "Why,  he  found  us.  He  turned  up 
on  foot — Friday  morning,  it  must  have  been — with  a  knap- 
sack on  his  shoulders;  came  to  the  farm-house  door  and 
asked  if  he  should  tune  the  piano.  Luckily,  I  happened  to 
be  about  and  caught  him  before  he  could  get  away.  He  was 
combining  a  walking  trip,  he  said,  with  his  own  way  of  earn- 
ing a  living  and  I  persuaded  him  to  stay  for  a  few  days  and 
make  us  a  visit." 

The  last  part  of  that  sentence,  Paula,  coming  down  into 
the  room  from  up-stairs,  heard. 

"Who  ?"  she  asked.  "Who's  the  visitor  you've  been  per- 
suading ?" 

It  was  just  a  good-natured  way  of  showing  her  interest 
in  anything  that  her  husband  might  happen  to  be  talking 
about.  But  when  he  answered,  "Anthony  March,"  she  came 
into  focus  directly. 

"Thank  goodness,  you've  found  him !"  she  said.  "I  had 
about  given  him  up. — And  I  really  need  him." 

"I  thought,"  said  John,  "that  you  had  given  him  up. 
Are  you  going  to  do  his  opera,  after  all  ?" 

"Opera !"  said  Paula  blankly,  as  if  she  had  never  heard 
of  such  a  thing.  "No,  I  want  him  to  see  if  he  can  fix  this 
beastly  piano  they've  given  me  so  that  it's  fit  to  work  with." 

And  John,  after  a  moment — laughed. 

It  was  a  shattering  sort  of  laugh  to  Mary.  She  stared 
at  the  man  who  uttered  it  as  if  he  were — what  he  had  for 
the  moment  become — a  stranger.  He  was  not,  certainly,  the 
man  who,  down  in  North  Carolina  had  talked  about 
March  with  her,  regretted  the  "rough  justice"  he  had  had 
from  Paula  and  considered  the  possibility  of  repairing  it. 
That  momentary  blank  look  of  his  had  shown  that  he  per- 
ceived the  insensitive  egotism  of  his  wife's  attitude.  Not 
even  now  that  her  success  was  an  established  thing  had  she 


216  MARY  WOLLASTON 

a  regretful  thought  for  the  man  who  had  hoped  to  share 
it  with  her.  She  had  forgotten  those  hopes.  All  she  re- 
membered now  about  Anthony  March  was  that  he  could 
tune  pianos  better  than  any  one  else. 

This  Mary's  father  saw  and  yet  he  laughed.  A  cruel 
laugh.  He  had  felt  for  the  moment  a  recurrence  of  the  old 
jealousy.  In  his  relief  from  it,  he,  a  reassured  lover, 
triumphed  in  the  humiliation  of  one  he  had  supposed  his 
rival. 

Mary  managed  to  hide  her  face  from  him — superflu- 
ously because  he  wasn't  looking  at  her — and  thought  up, 
desperately,  a  few  more  questions  about  how  they  were 
getting  on  at  Hickory  Hill. 

But  she  went  on  feeling  from  moment  to  moment  more 
horribly  in  the  way,  and  at  last  with  a  simulated  yawn  she 
said  she  was  going  to  bed.  "This — vicarious  success  is 
rather  tiring,"  she  told  her  father ;  "almost  as  bad  as  vicar- 
ious stage  fright."  And  then  to  Paula,  "Is  there  any  reason, 
if  you're  going  to  keep  father  here  for  two  days,  why  I 
shouldn't  steal  a  holiday  ?" 

"Go  away,  do  you  mean?"  Paula  asked  with  a  faint 
flusK.  "Why, — where  would  you  go  ?" 

"I  could  drive  over  to  Hickory  Hill,"  Mary  said,  "either 
by  myself  in  the  little  car  or  with  Pete  in  the  big  one. 
Whichever  you  wouldn't  rather  have  here." 

"I  think  that's  a  capital  idea,"  John  said.  "Oh,  you'd 
better  take  the  big  car  with  Pete.  It  would  be  rather  a  long 
drive  for  you  all  by  yourself  in  the  little  one." 

This  was  not  the  real  reason,  of  course.  He  wouldn't 
want  a  chauffeur  under  foot  while  he  was  honeymooning 
about  with  Paula. 

Owing  to  a  late  start  and  an  errand  which  at  the  last 
moment  Paula  wanted  done  in  Chicago,  it  was  getting  on 
toward  four  o'clock  when  Pete  drove  Mary  up  to  the  load- 


THE  WAYFARER  217 

ing  platform  of  the  old  apple  house  at  Hickory  Hill.  The 
farm  Ford  was  standing  there  idling  in  a  syncopated  man- 
ner and  apparently  on  the  point  of  departure  somewhere, 
Where,  was  explained  a  moment  later  by  the  emergence  of 
Sylvia  Stannard  in  her  conventional  farm  costume  of  shirt 
and  breeches  with  a  two-gallon  jug  in  each  hand. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "then  the  big  car  can  take  Miss  Wollas- 
ton  over  to  Durham,  can't  it? — so  she  won't  have  to  ride 
in  the  Ford  which  she  hates.  How  do  you  do?  I'm  awfully 
glad  you've  come.  We  weren't  expecting  you,  were  we? 
Was  anybody,  I  mean?" 

Mary  allowed  herself  a  laugh  at  this  young  thing  with 
her  refreshing  way  of  saying  first  whatever  first  came  into 
her  head  and  letting  this  serve  as  a  greeting,  said  she  was 
sure  the  big  car  and  Pete  were  equal  to  taking  her  aunt  to 
the  four-miles-distant  village. 

"That's  all  right  then.  I  won't  have  to  wait  for  her," 
said  Sylvia,  letting  down  her  jugs  into  the  tonneau  of  the 
Ford.  "Ill  run  straight  along  with  this.  They  must  be 
simply  perishing  for  it.  Isn't  it  hot,  though !" 

Mary  wanted  to  know  who  they  were  and  what  they 
were  perishing  for. 

"Lemonade,"  said  Sylvia,  "for  the  boys  out  in  the  hay 
field.  It's  perfectly  gorgeous  out  there  but  hot  enough  to 
frizz  your  hair." 

"Where  is  the  hay  field  ?"  Mary  asked.    "Is  it  very  far  ?" 

"It's  just  over  in  the  northeast  eighty,"  said  Sylvia,  with 
a  rather  conscious  parade  of  her  mastery  of  bucolic  ver- 
nacular. "But  you  don't  want  to  walk.  It  would  be  awfully 
jolly  if  you  would  come  along  with  me." 

"Wait  two  minutes  until  I've  said  hello  to  Aunt  Lucile 
and  I  will,"  said  Mary,  and  turned  to  go  into  the  house. 

"Don't  step  on  any  of  the  piano,"  Sylvia  called  after 
her.  "It's  spread  all  over  the  place." 


218  MARY  WOLLASTON 

They  had  made  a  good  many  changes  in  the  apple  house 
since  Mary  had  gone  to  Ravinia,  but  the  thing  that 
drew  a  little  cry  of  surprise  from  her  was  this  old  square 
piano.  The  case  of  it  stood  snugly  in  the  corner  of  the  west 
wall.  But  the  works  were  spread  about  the  room  in  a 
manner  which  made  Sylvia's  warning  less  far-fetched  than 
it  seemed. 

The  feeling  that  caught  Mary  at  sight  of  it  was  more 
than  just  surprise.  Its  dismantled  condition  brought  to  her 
a  half-scared  but  wholly  happy  reassurance  that  Anthony 
March  was  really  here. 

Her  journey  to  Hickory  Hill  had  been,  so  she  had  told 
herself  at  intervals  during  the  day,  merely  a  flight  from 
her  father  and  Paula.  There  was  no  real  reason  for  think- 
ing that  she  would  find  March  at  the  end  of  it.  Week-end 
visits  usually  ended  Monday  morning,  and  it  was  probable 
that  he  would  have  gone  hours  before  she  arrived.  She  was 
conscious  now  of  having  commanded  herself  not  to  be  silly 
when  she  was  fretting  over  the  late  start  from  Ravinia  and 
Paula's  errand  in  town.  It  zvould  be  nice  to  see  him  again ! 
He  was  probably  out  in  the  hay  field  with  the  others. 

She  gave  her  aunt  a  rather  absent-minded  greeting  and 
a  highly  condensed  summary  of  her  news.  Her  father  was 
well  and  was  stopping  on  with  Paula  for  a  day  or  two. 

"He's  taken  over  my  job,"  she  concluded  mischievously, 
"maid,  chauffeur  and  chaperon.  Paula  doesn't  mind  now 
that  she's  made  such  an  enormous  hit  and  she  doesn't  sing 
again  until  Thursday.  Pete  will  take  you  in  the  big  car  to 
Durham." 

"Well,  that's  Heaven's  mercy,"  exclaimed  Miss  Wollas- 
ton.  "I  don't  like  to  drive  with  Sylvia  in  any  car  and  I 
don't  like  riding  in  a  Ford  no  matter  who  drives.  But 
Sylvia  driving  a  Ford — her  own  car's  broken  down  some- 
how— is  simply  frightful." 


THE  WAYFARER  219 

"She's  waiting  for  me  now,"  said  Mary,  "to  take  me  out 
to  the  hay  field.  I  must  run  before  she  grows  any  more 
impatient." 

And  run  was  precisely  what  she  did,  down  the  slope  to 
where  Sylvia  awaited  her,  a  lighter-hearted  creature  alto- 
gether than  she  had  supposed  this  morning  that  it  was 
possible  for  her  to  be. 

She  got  an  explanation  of  the  piano  from  Sylvia.  She 
had  gone  with  Rush  and  Mr.  March  to  an  auction  sale  late 
Saturday  afternoon  at  a  farm  three  or  four  miles  away. 
Just  for  a  lark.  They  hadn't  meant  seriously  to  buy  any- 
thing. But  this  old  piano,  Mr.  March  having  sworn  that 
he  would  make  it  play  despite  the  fact  that  half  the  keys 
wouldn't  go  down  at  all  and  the  rest  when  they  did  made 
only  the  most  awful  noises,  they  had  bought  for  eleven 
dollars,  and  had  fetched  home  in  the  truck  on  Sunday. 

"I  think  he's  terribly  nice,"  Sylvia  confided.  "You  know 
him,  don't  you?  He's  quite  old,  of  course. — Well,  over 
thirty  he  says ;  but  he's  awfully — don't  you  know — well  pre- 
served. There  are  a  whole  lot  of  things  he  can  do." 

Mary  laughed.  "That  is  remarkable.  How  old  are  you, 
you  nice  young  thing?  Going  on  six?  Look  out!  You'll 
smash  the  lemonade !" 

"We're  going  to  surprise  them,"  Sylvia  announced  when 
they  had  arrived,  miraculously  without  disaster,  at  the 
northeast  eighty.  They  had  careened  through  the  wagon 
gate  and  halted  under  an  oak  tree  at  the  edge  of  the  field. 
"I'll  go  and  tell  them  I've  brought  the  lemonade,  but  I  won't 
say  anything  about  you.  You  keep  out  of  sight  behind  the 
tree.  Then  Graham  won't  want  to  go  and  brush  his  hair." 

It  startled  Mary  to  realize  that  she  had  forgotten  all 
about  Graham.  Not  even  the  sight  of  his  sister  had  re- 
called the — highly  special  nature  of  the  state  of  things  be- 
tween them  nor  suggested  the  need  for  preparing  an  atti- 


220  MARY  WOLLASTON 

tude  to  greet  him  with.  At  all  events  she  wouldn't  follow 
Sylvia's  suggestion  and  pop  out  at  him  from  behind  a  tree. 

He  was,  it  happened,  the  first  person  the  child  encoun- 
tered in  her  flight  across  the  field ;  the  others,  indistinguish- 
able at  that  distance,  were  in  a  group  a  little  farther  away. 
Mary  walked  out  to  meet  him  when  she  saw  him  coming 
toward  her  and  competently  gave  the  encounter  its  tone 
by  beginning  to  talk  to  him — about  how  hot  it  was  and  how 
nice  the  hay  smelled  and  how  good  it  seemed  to  be  back  here 
at  Hickory  Hill — while  they  were  still  a  good  twenty  paces 
apart.  You  couldn't  strike  any  sort  of  sentimental  note 
very  well  when  you  had  to  begin  at  a  shout.  Then  she  led 
him  back  to  the  lemonade,  gave  him  a  cigarette  and  an- 
swered at  length  and  with  a  good  deal  of  spontaneous  vivac- 
ity his  obligatory  questions  about  Paula  and  the  opening  of 
the  Ravinia  season. 

She  was  in  the  full  tide  of  this — and  was,  since  she  had 
sat  down  upon  a  small  boulder  Graham  had  insisted  she  take 
possession  of,  screened  by  the  trunk  of  the  tree — when 
Sylvia  hailed  her  brother  from  not  very  far  away  with 
the  statement  that  Rush  wouldn't  stop  for  anything  or  any- 
body until  once  more  around  the  field.  It  was  March,  then, 
who  was  audibly  coming  along  with  her.  Mary  rose,  broke 
off  about  Paula,  and  moved  the  single  step  it  needed  to 
give  her  sight  of  him. 

She  saw  nothing  else  but  him.  She  saw  his  head  go 
back  as  from  the  actual  impact  of  the  sight  of  her.  She  saw 
the  look,  unmistakable  as  a  blast  from  a  trumpet,  that 
flamed  into  his  face.  And  then  her  world  swam.  Paula 
wasn't  singing  now,  "Hither,  my  love !  Here  I  am !  Here !" 
Nor  could  Paula  come  upon  him  now,  from  anywhere,  and 
take  him  by  the  shoulders  and  kiss  his  cheek  and  lead  him 
away  with  her.  This  moment  was  not  Paula's — whatever 
the  other  had  been. 


THE  WAYFARER  221 

And  the  rest,  standing  there  looking  on,  hadn't  seen 
the  bolt  fall !  They  were  talking  as  idly  and  easily  as  if  this 
were  nothing  but  a  hot  summer  afternoon  in  the  hay  field. 

"I  told  him,"  she  heard  Sylvia  saying,  "that  there  was 
another  nice  old  person  he  knew  here  with  the  lemonade, 
who  thought  I  was  only  about  six. — Were  you  surprised 
when  you  saw  who  she  was? — I'm  going  to  take  him  back 
to  the  apple  house  with  us,  now  that  Mary's  come,  so  that 
he  can  have  the  piano  ready  to  dance  by  to-night."  This 
last,  apparently,  to  Graham. 

She  even  heard  herself  join  in, — the  voice  was  hers 
anyhow — when  Graham,  commenting  upon  the  view  across 
the  field,  remarked  that  it  was  so  intensely  farm-like  that  it 
had  almost  the  look  of  a  stage  setting. 

"It  is  like  something,"  she  said  then.  "It's  like  the  first 
act  of  Le  Chemineau.  We  ought  to  have  a  keg  of  cider 
instead  of  two  jugs  of  lemonade  and  we  should  have 
brought  it  in  a  wheelbarrow  instead  of  in  the  Ford." 

"Well,  we  couldn't  take  Mr.  March  back  in  a  wheel- 
barrow," Sylvia  said,  "so  I'm  glad  it  isn't  the  first  act  of 
whatever-you-call-it.  Because  he's  simply  got  to  fix  the 
piano  well  enough  for  jazz." 

Mary  couldn't  remember  that  he  spoke  a  word,  but  he 
got  into  the  back  seat  of  the  Ford  with  her  when  Sylvia  slid 
under  the  wheel. 

"If  you'll  promise,"  Sylvia  said  to  March  at  the  end  of 
the  breathless  mile  back  to  the  apple  house,  "if  you'll 
promise  to  go  straight  to  work  at  it  and  never  stop  until  it'll 
play  the  Livery  Stable  Blues,  then  I'll  go  back  to  the  hay 
field  and  see  that  Rush  gets  some  of  the  lemonade  before 
those  laborers  drink  it  all  up.  You'll  see  to  him,  won't  you, 
Mary?  Stand  right  over  him  and  be  severe,  so  that  we 
can  dance  to-night.  You  aren't  as  excited  about  it  as  you 
ought  to  be.  I  think  I'll  come  in  and  start  him." 


222  MARY  WOLLASTON 

And  this  she  did  while  the  Ford  executed  a  little  jazz 
rhythm  of  its  own  outside.  She  didn't  stay  more  than  a 
minute  or  two  though.  When  she  saw  him  fairly  occupied, 
tools  in  hand,  over  his  task,  she  darted  away  again  with  a 
last  injunction  to  severity  upon  Mary. 

She  had  seen  nothing.    The  two  were  left  alone. 

Mary  sat  where  she  could  watch  his  fine  skilled  hands 
at  work.  The  negligent  precision  with  which  they  accom- 
plished their  varied  tasks  occupied  her,  made  it  possible  to 
continue  for  a  while  the  silence  she  needed  until  her  world 
should  have  stopped  swimming;  until  the  blindness  of  that 
revelation  should  have  passed. 

She  had  been  wrong  about  him  again.  He  was  not  an 
Olympian.  (But,  of  course,  Olympians  themselves  weren't, 
if  it  came  to  that;  not  always.)  He  could  never,  she  had 
been  telling  herself  since  that  day  when  they  had  had  their 
one  talk  together,  belong  to  any  one.  He  did  not — save 
himself  up  for  special  people.  He  was  just  there,  the  same 
for  everybody,  like,  she  had  half  humorously  observed  to 
her  father,  a  public  drinking  fountain. 

If  that  was  the  rule,  she,  Mary  Wollaston,  was  the  ex- 
ception to  it.  Not  Paula  with  her  opulent  armory,  but  she 
who  had  listened  with  him,  clinging  to  him,  while  Paula 
sang;  she,  who  had  talked  to  him  while  Paula  fought  for 
her  husband's  life;  she,  whom  he  had  come  upon  in  the 
shade  of  the  oak  tree  at  the  edge  of  the  hay  field ;  she  who 
sat  near  him,  silent  now.  This  was  the  meager  total  that 
outweighed  those  uncounted  hours  of  Paula's.  Somehow 
she  had  acquired  a  special  significance  for  him. 

Was  she  trying  to  evade  saying  that  he  had  fallen  in 
love  with  her.  What  was  the  good — except  that  it  sounded 
sweet — of  using  a  phrase  which  could  be  packed  like  a 
hand-bag  with  anything  you  chose  to  put  into  it?  Graham 
was  in  love  with  her.  That  boy  in  New  York,  whom  she 


THE  WAYFARER  223 

had  found  in  a  panic  of  lonely  terror  lest  he  should  prove  a 
coward  in  the  great  ordeal  he  was  facing  overseas  had  been 
for  a  few  hours  in  love  with  her.  What  would  be  the  con- 
tent of  the  phrase  for  a  man  like  this  ? 

Was  she  in  love  with  him  ?  Her  thoughts  up  to  now  had 
been  deep,  submerged,  almost  formless,  but  this  question 
came  to  the  surface  and  touched  her  lips  with  a  smile.  Well, 
and  what  did  the  phrase  mean  to  her  ? 

All  she  could  think  of  as  she  sat  so  still  watching  him, 
was  those  fine  hands  of  his,  working  as  skilfully  and  swiftly 
as  her  father's  ever  worked  but  at  this  humble  task.  She 
kept  her  eyes  away  for  just  a  little  longer  from  his  face. 
She  wanted  those  hands.  She  wanted  them  with  an  inten- 
sity that  made  it  impossible  at  last  to  let  the  silence  endure 
any  longer. 

"Paula  .  .  ."  she  said,  and  stopped  in  sheer  surprise 
that  her  voice  had  come  at  all;  then  began  again,  "Paula 
wanted  you  to  tune  her  piano.  At  Ravinia.  I  was  angry, 
at  that,  until  she  reminded  me  that  you  wouldn't  be." 

His  hand  laid  down  the  small,  odd  shaped  tool  it  held, 
but  the  next  moment  picked  it  up  again. 

"I  shouldn't  have  minded  tuning  her  piano,"  he  told  her. 

"I  know,"  she  said.  "I  knew  as  soon  as  I  had  had  a 
minute  in  which  to — gather  you  up.  And  when  I  had  done 
that,  I  helped  her  try  to  find  you.  I  had  a  special  reason,  a 
different  one  from  Paula's,  for  hoping  that  we  could.  And 
for  my  reason,"  she  went  on,  trembling  a  little  and  finding 
it  harder  to  make  her  words  come  steadily,  "it  isn't — yet, 
too  late. 

"You  see  if  you  were  there  with  her  where  she  could 
see  you  every  day — there'd  be  a  lot  of  pianos  there  she  said ; 
enough  to  keep  you  going — she'd  remember  you  again.  She 
is  like  that.  Lots  of  people  are,  I  suppose.  When  she 
doesn't  see  you,  she  forgets.  But  if  she  remembered  how 


224  MARY  WOLLASTON 

much  she  liked  you  and  how  good  your  opera  was, — the 
real  one,  the  one  you  wrote  for  yourself — she  might  do 
something  about  it. — To  get  it  played — so  that  you  could 
hear  it.  Now  that  she's  had  a  great  success,  she  could  do 
almost  anything  quite  easily,  I  think.  Infinitely  more  than 
I.  I've  been  trying,  but  I  haven't  got  very  far." 

He  laid  down  the  tool  once  more  and  locked  his  hands 
together.  "You  have  been  trying?"  he  repeated.  The  ten- 
sion, like  the  grip  of  his  hands,  was  drawing  up  almost 
unbearably. 

"There's  a  French  baritone  there,  Fournier,  who  could 
play  your  officer's  part.  As  you  meant  it  to  be  played,  I 
think.  But  he  doesn't  sing  in  English.  I  thought  it  might 
be  possible,  if  you  didn't  mind  its  being  sung  in  French,  to 
translate  it.  That's  one  of  the  things  I've  been — trying  to 
do." 

And  then  with  a  gasp  and  a  sob,  "Oh,  don't, — don't 
hurt  them  like  that!"  she  reached  out  and  took  the  hands 
she  wanted. 

He  responded  to  the  caress,  as  before,  so  quickly  that 
one  could  hardly  have  known  where  it  began;  only  Mary 
did  know.  She  looked  up  then  into  his  face,  steadily,  open- 
eyed,  though  she  could  not  see  much  for  the  blur. 

"This  time,"  he  said,  laboriously, — "this  time  it  isn't 
the  song." 

She  shook  her  head. 

"I  couldn't  have  waited,  like  that,"  he  told  her,  three 
breaths  later,  "except  for  being  afraid  that  if  I  tried  to 
touch  you,  you  wouldn't  be  there  at  all.  Like  a  fairy  story ; 
• — or  a  dream.  I  have  never  been  sure  that  the  other  time 
wasn't." 

"It's  real  enough,"  she  said.  "You're  sure  now,  aren't 
you?" 


THE  WAYFARER  225 

His  answer,  the  one  she  meant  him  to  make,  was  to  draw 
her  up  into  a  deep  embrace,  his  lips  upon  hers. 

"What  does  it  mean?"  he  asked,  when  they  had  drawn 
back  from  it. 

She  smiled  at  that.  "You  don't  need  ask.  That's  the 
Wollaston  trick,  to  ask  for  meanings  and  reasons."  She 
added,  a  moment  later,  "It  means  whatever  it  says  to  your 
heart." 

It  was  at  her  half-humorous  suggestion  that  he  went 
back,  presently,  to  work  at  the  piano.  She  settled  con- 
tentedly near  him  where  with  an  outstretched  hand  she  could 
occasionally  respond  to  his  touch.  They  hadn't,  either  of 
them,  very  much  to  say. 

Once  the  work  was  interrupted,  when  he  asked,  rather 
tensely,  "Do  you  want  me  to  come  to  Ravinia  ?" 

She  found  herself  at  a  loss  for  a  categorical  reply.  She'd 
have  thought  that  a  whole-hearted  yes  would  have  been 
the  only  thing  she  could  say. 

"I  don't  want  you — tortured  any  more  with  unheard 
melodies,"  she  answered  after  a  moment's  reflection. 

His  nod,  decisive  as  it  was,  struck  her  as  equivocal.  But 
she  was  too  happy  to  probe  into  anything  this  afternoon. 
There  would  be  plenty  of  time;  unstinted  hours.  It  was 
with  no  more  than  a  mild  regret  that  she  heard,  under  the 
windows,  the  return  of  the  big  car  with  Aunt  Lucile.  This 
inextinguishable  happiness  expressed  itself  in  the  touch  of 
impudent  mischief  with  which  she  slipped  up  close  behind 
Anthony  March  and,  in  the  last  possible  instant  before  her 
aunt's  entrance  into  the  room,  bent  down  and  kissed  him; 
then  flashed  back  to  her  decorously  distant  chair. 

It  was  funny  how  calm  she  was.  This  day  that  was 
closing  down  over  the  hill  behind  the  apple  house  couldn't 
be,  it  seemed,  the  same  that  had  dawned  over  the  lake  at 


226  MARY  WOLLASTON 

Ravinia.  The  whole  Ravinia  episode,  even  as  she  told 
Lucile  and  March  about  it,  seemed  remote,  like  something- 
out  of  a  book;  but  became  for  that  very  reason,  rather 
pleasant  to  dwell  upon.  Sylvia  came  in  pretty  soon  for  a 
critical  survey  of  what  March  had  accomplished  with  the 
piano,  volunteered  to  help  and  attempted  to.  But  having 
pied  some  of  Anthony's  arrangements  of  loose  parts,  she 
was  sacked  off  the  job  and  sent  back  to  the  hay  field  to 
bring  the  boys  in  for  supper. 

After  supper  the  excitement  over  the  piano  increased. 
They  all  gathered  round  March  like  people  watching  a  con- 
jurer's trick  when  he  slid  the  action  into  place  and  proved, 
chromatically,  that  every  hammer  would  strike  and  every 
key  return. 

"But  it  isn't  tuned  at  all,"  Sylvia  wailed.  "It  will  be 
hours  before  you  can  play  on  it." 

"Minutes,"  March  corrected  with  a  grin.  And  they 
watched,  amazed, — but  less  so  really  than  an  ordinary  piano 
tuner  would  have  been, — at  the  way  he  caught  octaves, 
fifths  and  fourths,  sixths  and  thirds  up  and  down  that  key- 
board like  a  juggler  keeping  seven  tennis  balls  in  the  air. 

"There  you  are,"  he  said  suddenly,  before  it  seemed  that 
he  could  be  half-way  through  and  began  playing  a  dance. 

"But  you  can  play  tunes !"  cried  Sylvia.  "I  thought  you 
only  did  terribly  high-brow  things.  That's  what  Rush 
said." 

"I  was  pianist  in  the  best  jazz  orchestra  in  Bordeaux," 
March  told  her. 

He  stayed  there  at  the  piano  quite  contentedly  for  more 
than  an  hour.  Some  of  the  musical  jokes  he  indulged  in 
(his  sense  of  humor  expressed  itself  more  easily  and  im- 
pudently in  musical  terms  than  in  any  other)  were  rather 
over  his  auditors'  heads.  Parodies  whose  originals  they 
failed  to  recognize,  experiments  in  the  whole-tone  scale  that 


THE  WAYFARER  227 

would  have  interested  disciples  of  Debussy,  but  his  rhythms 
they  understood  and  recognized  as  faultless. 

And  Mary  danced.  With  Graham  when  she  must,  with 
Rush  when  she  could.  The  latter  happened  oftener  than 
you  would  have  supposed. 

"Those  Wollastons  can  certainly  dance,"  Sylvia  re- 
marked to  her  brother.  "I  wonder  they'll  have  anything 
to  do  with  us.  Let's  just  watch  them  for  a  minute. — Here, 
we'll  turn  the  piano  around  so  Mr.  March  can  see,  too." 

It  was  queer,  Mary  reflected,  how  easy  it  was  for  her 
and  also,  she  was  sure,  for  her  lover,  to  acquiesce  in  a  spend- 
ing of  the  hours  like  that ;  how  little  impatient  she  was  of 
the  presence  of  these  others  that  kept  them  apart.  She 
gave  no  thought  to  any  maneuver,  practicable  or  fantastic, 
for  stealing  away  with  him,  not  even  when,  as  the  party 
broke  up  for  the  night  it  became  evident  that  chance  was  not 
going  so  to  favor  them. 

She  realized  afterward  that  there  had  been  something 
factitious  about  her  tranquillity.  What  he  had  said  in  the 
moment  before  their  first  embrace  had  been  on  that  same 
note.  He  had  been  afraid  to  touch  her  for  fear  that — as  in 
a  fairy  story,  or  a  dream, — she  wouldn't  be  there.  All  that 
afternoon  and  evening,  despite  an  ineffable  security  in  their 
miracle,  she  had  walked  softly  and  so  far  as  the  future  was 
concerned,  avoided  trying  to  look. 

Something  in  his  gaze  when  he  said  good  night  to  her. 
gave  her  a  momentary  foreboding,  though  she  told  herself  on 
the  way  up  to  the  tent  she  was  to  share  with  Sylvia  that  this 
was  nothing  but  the  scare  that  always  comes  along  with  a 
too  complete  happiness. 

But  in  the  morning  when  her  aunt  told  her  that  March 
had  gone,  she  realized  that  it  had  been  more  than  that. 

It  was  in  the  presence  of  the  others  who  had  gathered 
in  the  apple  house  for  breakfast  that  she  heard  the  news, 


228  MARY  WOLLASTON 

and  this  was  perhaps  a  mercy;  for  the  effort  she  had  to 
make  to  keep  from  betraying  herself  rallied  her  forces  and 
prevented  a  rout. 

To  the  others  his  having  gone  like  that  seemed  natural 
enough, — likably  characteristic  of  him,  at  any  rate.  In  his 
note  to  Miss  Wollaston  he  had  merely  said  that  he  realized 
that  he  must  be  off  and  wished  to  make  the  most  of  the  cool 
of  the  morning.  He  hoped  she  would  understand  and 
pardon  his  not  having  spoken  of  his  intention  last  night. 

"It's  the  crush  Sylvia  had  on  him  that  accounts  for  that," 
Graham  observed.  "He  was  afraid  of  the  row  she'd  make 
if  he  let  on." 

Sylvia's  riposte  to  this  was  the  speculation  that  Mary 
had  scared  him  away,  but  one  could  see  that  her  brother's 
explanation  pleased  her. 

"Anyhow,"  she  concluded,  "he  was  good  while  he  lasted." 

What  held  Mary  together  was  the  obvious  fact  that  none 
of  them  saw — no  more  than  they  had  seen — anything.  Not 
one  curious  or  questioning  glance  was  turned  her  way.  A 
sense  she  was  not  until  later  able  to  find  words  for,  that  she 
was  guarding  something,  his  quite  as  much  as  her  own,  from 
profaning  eyes,  gave  her  the  resolution  it  needed  to  carry 
on  like  that  until  she  could  be  alone.  Naturally, — or  at  all 
events  plausibly — alone.  She  wouldn't  run  away  from  any- 
body. 

Toward  eleven  o'clock  chance  befriended  her.  She  hid 
herself  in  the  old  orchard,  lay  prone  upon  the  warm  grass, 
her  cheek  upon  her  folded  forearms,  and  let  herself  go. 
She  did  not  cry  even  now.  Grief  was  not  what  she  felt, 
still  less  resentment. 

She  was  lonely  as  she  had  never  been  before,  and 
frightened  by  her  loneliness.  All  the  familiar  things  of  her 
life  seemed  far  away,  unreal.  She  wanted  a  hand  to  hold ; 


THE  WAYFARER  229 

— his — oh,  one  of  his ! — until  she  could  find  her  way  into  a 
path  again. 

She  had  known,  she  reflected, — somewhere  in  the  depths 
of  her  she  had  known — from  the  first  moment  of  their  meet- 
ing, that  he  would  go  away.  This  was  why  she  had  been  so 
careful  not  to  look  beyond  the  moments  as  they  came ;  not 
to  tempt  Nemesis  by  asking  nor  trying  for  too  much. 

There  happened  to  be,  rather  uncannily,  a  genuine  proof 
that  this  was  true.  While  she  had  been  still  dazed  with  that 
first  look  of  his,  there  in  the  oak  shade  at  the  edge  of  the 
field,  she  had  said  that  it  was  like  the  first  act  of  Le  Chem~ 
ineau.  That  had  been  speaking  all  but  with  the  tongue  of 
prophecy.  Deeply  as  the  story  had  impressed  her  when  she 
heard  it,  she  had  spoken  with  no  conscious  sense  of  the 
likeness  between  that  wayfarer — whom  neither  love  nor 
interest  nor  security  could  tempt  away  from  the  open  road 
which  called  him, — and  Anthony  March.  It  was  an  inner 
self  that  knew  and  found  a  chance  to  speak.  It  was  that 
same  self  who  had  answered  for  her  when  he  asked  whether 
she  wanted  him  to  come  to  Ravinia. 

He  had  come  to  his  decision  then,  with  just  that  nod  of 
the  head.  And  she,  forlorn,  was  glad  he  had  cast  this  temp- 
tation aside.  That  he  was  plodding  now  sturdily  along  his 
highway.  She  flushed  with  shame  at  the  thought  of  him, 
ubiquitous  among  those  egotists  at  Ravinia,  enlisting 
their  interest,  reminding  Paula  how  much  she  liked  him. 

Why  had  he  not  hated  her  for  suggesting  such  a  thing? 
He  had  loved  her  for  it,  she  knew,  because  he  understood 
the  longing  to  comfort  and  protect  him  which  lay  behind  it. 
But  that  sort  of  comfort  was  not  for  him.  The  torture  of 
the  unheard  melodies,  instead. 

He  did  love  her.  This,  utterly,  she  knew.  His  going 
away,  even  with  no  farewell  at  all,  cast  no  flaw  upon  the 


230  MARY  WOLLASTON 

miraculous  certainty  of  that.  Their  one  unreserved  em- 
brace remained  the  symbol  of  it. 

She  pressed  her  hands  to  her  face  and  with  a  long  in- 
drawn breath  surrendered  to  the  memory  of  it.  It  was  hers 
— for  always. 

The  family  were  sitting  at  dinner  when  she  came  down 
to  the  apple  house,  and  after  a  rather  startled  look  at  her, 
demanded  to  know  where  she  had  been. 

"Asleep  in  the  orchard,"  she  said.  "And  not  altogether 
awake  yet." 

But  she  knew  she  must  get  away  from  them.  The  look 
she  saw  in  Graham's  face  would  have  decided  that. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

A   CASE  OF   NECESSITY 

SHE  told  Rush  when  they  left  the  table,  that  she  had 
some  shopping  to  do  in  town  for  Paula  and  meant  to 
go  on  the  afternoon  train.  She  was  expected  back  at 
Ravinia  to-morrow  anyhow.  Beyond  trying  to  persuade  her 
to  let  Pete  drive  her  in  he  made  no  protest,  but  she  could 
see  that  he  was  troubled  about  it  and  she  wasn't  much  sur- 
prised to  find  Wallace  Hood  waiting  on  the  station  platform 
when  her  train  got  in. 

She  didn't,  very  much,  mind  Wallace.  There  was  no 
appearance  of  his  being  there  in  the  role  of  guardian  be- 
cause she  wasn't  considered  safe  to  leave  to  herself.  You 
could  always  trust  Wallace  to  do  a  thing  like  that  perfectly. 

It  was  a  great  piece  of  luck  for  him  he  told  her.  He  had 
called  up  Hickory  Hill  to  congratulate  John  upon  Paula's 
enormous  success;  had  learned  from  Rush  of  Mary's  visit 
and  that  she  was  even  then  on  the  way  to  Chicago.  He  had 
just  dropped  round  at  the  station  in  the  hope  of  being  able 
to  pick  her  up  for  dinner.  She  had  som*  shopping  to  do 
he  understood  and  he  wouldn't  detain  her  now. 

"Oh,  nothing  that  matters  a  bit,"  said  Mary.  "It  was 
an  excuse  merely,  for  running  away  from  Hickory  Hill." 

There  was  something  to  be  said  for  a  man  like  Wallace 
as  a  confidant.  He  was  perfectly  safe  not  to  guess  anything 
on  his  own  account.  He  seemed  touched  by  her  candor  and 
hugged  her  arm  against  his  side  as  they  walked  along, 
a  gesture  of  endearment  such  as  he  hadn't  indulged  in  for 
half  a  dozen  years. 

"So  if  you  have  nothing  better  to  do,"  she  went  on, 
"we  can  begin  our  evening  now.  Though  I  suppose  I  had 
better  finu,  first,  a  place  to  sleep." 

231 


232  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"Frederica  Whitney's  in  town  for  a  day  or  two,  just  for 
a  flying  visit  to  Martin.  She'd  be  glad  to  take  you  in,  I'm 
sure." 

"Oh,  I  think  not,"  said  Mary.  "Not  if  I  can  get  anything 
with  four  walls  at  the  Blackstone." 

She  thought  from  his  glance  at  her  that  he  attached  some 
special  significance  to  her  unwillingness  to  go  to  the  Whit- 
ney house  and  hastened  to  assure  him  this  was  not  the 
case. 

"Frederica's  a  dear.  Only  I  just  happen  to  feel  like  not 
being  anybody's  guest  to-night.  Oh,  and  I  didn't  mean  you 
by  that  either." 

"It's  nice  to  be  nobody  in  that  sense,"  he  said. 

His  next  suggestion  was  that  he  get  his  car,  start  north 
up  the  shore  with  her,  have  dinner  at  one  of  the  taverns 
along  the  road  and  deliver  her  in  good  season  for  a  night's 
sleep  in  the  cottage  at  Ravinia. 

But  this  suggestion  was  declined  rather  more  curtly. 

"To-morrow  is  as  soon  as  I  want  to  go  there,"  she  said. 
"Pete's  going  over  then  to  get  father  so  I  shall  go  on  duty. 
But  meanwhile  I'll  let  him  enjoy  his  holiday  in  peace." 

He  made  no  further  demur  to  telephoning  over  to  the 
Blackstone. 

On  his  coming  back  presently  with  the  news  that  he 
had  a  room  for  her,  she  said,  "Then  we've  nothing  on  our 
minds,  have  we?  Except  finding  a  place  for  dinner  that's 
quiet  and — not  too  romantic.  I  am  glad  you  came  to  meet 
me." 

She  was  quite  sincere  about  this.  It  would  have  been 
ghastly  she  reflected,  to  have  spent  the  evening  alone  in  a 
hotel  bedroom  with  her  own  thoughts,  if  those  she  had 
entertained  on  the  train  coming  in  were  a  fair  sample. 

He  was  being  just  as  nice  to  her  as  possible.  By  his 
old-fashioned  standards,  no  hotel  was  a  proper  place  for  a 


A  CASE  OF  NECESSITY  233 

young  girl  to  spend  a  night  in  alone.  Yet  beyond  offering 
two  alternative  suggestions,  he  forbore  trying  to  dissuade 
her.  So  when  he  chose  the  Saddle  and  Cycle  as  their  anchor- 
age for  the  evening,  she  endorsed  his  choice  with  the  best 
appearance  of  enthusiasm  she  could  muster,  though  she'd 
rather  have  gone  to  a  place  where  three  out  of  four  of  the 
other  diners  wouldn't  in  all  probability  be  known  to  her. 

Arriving,  however,  in  the  unclassified  hour  between  tea 
and  dinner,  they  found  they  had  the  place  pretty  much  to 
themselves  and  settled  down  in  a  secluded  angle  of  the 
veranda  for  a  leisurely  visit.  They  began  on  Paula,  of 
course,  her  retrieved  failure  and  her  sensational  success. 
How  sorry  Wallace  was  not  to  have  been  there  for  her 
"Nddda."  (He  didn't  go  in  much  for  Sunday  entertain- 
ments of  any  sort,  Mary  remembered.)  Well,  it  had  been 
just  as  splendid  as  everybody  said  it  was.  That  was  one 
thing,  at  any  rate,  that  had  been  put  beyond  discussion. 
Even  the  pundits  were,  for  the  moment  anyhow,  silenced. 

He  was  curious  as  to  how  the  intimate  details  of  this 
strange  life  she  had  a  chance  to  observe,  struck  her.  How 
she  liked  Paula's  colleagues;  to  what  extent  the  glamour 
evaporated  when  one  was  behind  the  scenes. 

She  satisfied  him  as  well  as  she  could,  though  her  oppor- 
tunities, she  said,  were  a  good  deal  narrower  than  he  took 
them  to  be.  She  had,  herself,  so  much  to  do  as  Paula's 
factotem  that  there  wasn't  much  leisure  for  loafing  about. 
And  this  launched  her  into  a  humorously  exaggerated  ac- 
count of  what  was  involved  in  being  secretary,  chauffeur 
and  chaperon  to  a  successful  opera  star.  But  she  pulled  up 
when  she  saw  he  was  taking  it  seriously. 

"It's  shocking  she  should  work  you  like  that,"  he  said  in 
a  burst  of  undisguised  indignation.  "Of  course,  it's  pre- 
cisely what  Paula  would  do.  She  has  very  little  common 
consideration,  I'm  afraid,  for  anybody." 


234  MARY  WOLLASTON 

Mary  could  not  remember  having  heard  him  speak  like 
that,  in  all  the  years  she'd  known  him,  of  anybody ;  she  was 
sure  he  never  had  so  spoken  of  any  one  who  bore  the  name 
of  Wollaston.  Taken  aback  as  she  was  she  changed  her 
tune  altogether  and  tried  to  reassure  him. 

"But  that's  what  I'm  there  for,  Wallace  dear!  To  be 
worked.  And  you've  no  idea  how  I  like  having  something 
to  do  which  amounts,  in  a  small  way,  to  a  job." 

"It's  too  hard  for  you,  though,"  he  persisted.  "It  isn't 
what  you  were  trained  for.  And  it's  rather,  as  I  said, — 
shocking.  If  it  was  all  understood  from  the  first,  then  so 
much  the  worse  for  the  understanding.  I  hope  your  father, 
when  he  went  up  there,  didn't  discover  what  your  duties 
were  supposed  to  be." 

"No,"  Mary  said  rather  dryly,  "I  don't  believe  he  did." 

"Well,"  he  said  thoughtfully,  at  the  end  of  a  short 
silence,  "I  am  profoundly  thankful  that  she's  made  so — solid 
a  success." 

Up  to  this  moment  none  of  their  talk  had  been  quite  real 
to  Mary.  She  had  betrayed  no  inattention  to  him  and  when 
it  had  come  her  turn  to  carry  on  the  conversational  stream 
she  had  done  so  adequately  and  even  with  a  certain  vivacity. 
But  it  had  meant  no  more  than  an  occupation ;  something 
that  passed  the  time  and  held  her  potential  thoughts  at  bay. 

This  last  observation  of  his,  though,  struck  a  different 
note.  He  had  done  full  justice  to  his  pleasure  in  Paula's 
success  at  the  very  beginning  of  their  talk.  Now  he  meant 
something  by  it.  Leaning  forward  a  little  for  a  keener  look 
at  him,  she  asked  what  it  was  that  he  meant. 

He  was  a  little  surprised  to  be  brought  to  book  like 
that,  but  he  made  hardly  an  effort  to  fence  with  her.  "I  was 
glad,  I  meant,  for  purely  non-sentimental  reasons.  Her 
success  may  prove,  I  suppose,  a  practical  solution  of  some 
difficulties." 


A  CASE  OF  NECESSITY  235 

"Practical?"  she  echoed.  "You  don't  mean, — yes,  I 
suppose  you  do  mean, — money  difficulties.  Do  you  mean 
that  Paula's  going  to  be  invited  to  support  the  family  now  ?" 
She  finished  with  a  little  laugh  and  he  winced  at  it.  "Father 
said  something  like  that  to  me  one  day  while  I  was  down 
south  with  him,"  she  explained.  "Only  he  said  it  as  a  joke, 
— a  sort  of  joke.  That's  why  I  laughed." 

"He  talked  to  you  then  about  his  afBairs?"  Wallace 
asked.  "May  I  ...  Do  you  mind  telling  me  what  he 
said?" 

"Of  course  not,  if  I  can  remember.  He'd  been  remiss, 
he  said,  about  making  money.  He  said  that  if  he  had  died, 
then  when  he  was  so  ill,  there  wouldn't  have  been,  beyond 
his  life  insurance  which  was  for  Paula,  much  more  than 
enough  to  pay  his  debts.  Practically  nothing  for  Rush  and 
me  is  what  that  came  to.  I  pointed  out  to  him  that  we 
could  take  care  of  ourselves,  and  he  said  that  anyway  as 
soon  as  he  could  get  back  into  practise,  he'd  begin  to  make 
a  lot  of  money  and  save.  It  must  be  a  good  deal  worse, — 
the  whole  situation  I  mean — than  I  took  it  to  be,  for  you  to 
mean  that  seriously  about  Paula." 

She  had  managed  an  appearance  of  composure  but  in 
truth  she  was  badly  shaken.  Money  matters  was  just  about 
the  one  real  taboo  that  she  respected  and  to  break  over  this 
habitual  reticence  even  with  an  old  friend  like  Wallace 
troubled  her  delicacy.  The  notion  she  got  from  the  look  in 
his  face  that  there  was  something  dubious  about  her 
father's  solvency,  was  terrifying.  She  hid  her  hands  under 
the  tabk  so  that  he  shouldn't  see  they  were  trembling.  She 
wanted  the  truth  from  him  now,  rather  than  vaguely  com- 
forting generalties,  and  if  she  betrayed  her  real  feelings, 
these  latter  were  what  she  would  drive  him  back  upon. 

"Can  you  tell  me,"  she  asked  after  a  pause,  "exactly  how 
bad  it  is  ?" 


236  MARY  WOLLASTON 

He  couldn't  furnish  details.  He  told  her  though  that 
there  couldn't  be  any  doubt  her  father's  affairs  were  more 
involved  than  his  summary  of  them  had  made  them 
appear.  "He  isn't  a  very  good  bookkeeper,  of  course, — 
never  was ;  and  he  has  never  taken  remonstrances  very  seri- 
ously. Why,  about  all  I  know  is  that  Martin  Whitney 
is  worried.  He  tried  to  dissuade  John  from  going  in  any- 
where near  so  heavily  on  the  Hickory  Hill  project. — And 
that,  of  course,  was  before  we  had  any  reason  to  suppose 
that  his  ability  to  earn  money  was  going  to  be  .  .  ." 

It  was  apparent  that  he  discarded  the  word  that  came 
to  his  tongue  here  and  cast  about  for  another;  "interfered 
with,"  was  what  he  finally  hit  upon.  "Then  he's  your  aunt's 
trustee  and  I  believe  that  complicates  the  situation,  though 
just  how  much  I  don't  know.  Rush  didn't  get  a  letter  from 
Martin  this  morning,  did  he?" 

"I  don't  know,"  Mary  said  numbly. 

"I  thought  perhaps,"  he  explained,  "that  might  be 
the  reason  why  you  didn't  want  to  go  to  their  house  to- 
night. Rush  doesn't  quite  understand  Martin's  position 
nor  do  justice  to  it.  Martin  wants  to  have  a  really  thor- 
ough talk  with  him  I  know,  as  soon  as  possible." 

"Wallace  .  .  ."  Mary  asked,  after  another  silence, 
"what  was  the  word  you  didn't  say  when  you  spoke  of 
father's  earning  power  being — interfered  with?  Was  it 
— cut  off?  Do  you  mean  that  father  isn't — ever  going  to 
be  well?" 

Startled  as  he  was,  he  did  not  attempt  a  total  denial; 
answered  her,  though  with  an  effort,  candidly. 

"It's  not  hopeless,  at  all,"  he  assured  her.  "It  really  is 
not.  If  he'll  rest,  live  an  outdoor  life  for  the  next  year  or 
two,  he  has  a  good  chance  to  become  a  well  man  again. 
It's  probable  that  he  will, — practically  so.  But  if  he1  at- 
tempts to  take  up  his  practise  in  the  autumn  it  will  simply 
be,  so  Darby  declares,  suicide." 


A  CASE  OF  NECESSITY  237 

"That  means  tuberculosis,  I  suppose,"  she  said. 

He  nodded ;  then  involuntarily  he  reached  his  hands  out 
toward  her,  a  gesture  rare  with  him  and  eloquent  equally 
of  sympathy  and  consternation.  He  hadn't  in  the  least 
meant  to  tell  her  all  that — nor  indeed  any  of  it.  Her  hands 
met  his  with  a  warm  momentary  pressure  and  then  with- 
drew. He  had,  for  a  fact,  pretty  well  forgotten  where  they 
were. 

"If  you  knew,"  she  said,  "how  kind  you've  been  not  to 
try  to — spare  me.  No,  don't  bother.  I'm  not  going  to  cry. 
Just  give  me  a  minute  .  .  ." 

It  was  less  than  that  before  she  asked,  in  a  tone  re- 
assuringly steady,  "Does  father  know,  himself?" 

"He's  been  warned,  but  he's  skeptical.  Steinmetz  says 
there's  nothing  surprising  about  that.  It's  his  all  but  uni- 
versal experience  with  men  of  his  own  profession.  Of 
course  this  summer  out  at  Hickory  Hill  is  so  much  to  the 
good.  And  if  he  can  get  sufficiently  interested  to  stay  there 
the  year  round,  why,  there's  no  knowing.  The  investment 
in  that  farm  may  prove  the  wisest  one  he  ever  made." 

"If  it  were  only  possible," — she  was  quoting  what  her 
father  had  said  to  her  the  other  night  at  Ravinia, — 
"for  him  to  be  whole-heartedly  there !  And  he  could  be — 
for  it's  a  place  one  can't  help  loving  and  he  and  Rush  are 
wonderful  companions — he  could  be  whole-heartedly  there 
if  it  weren't  for  Paula." 

It  was  precisely  at  this  point,  he  indicated  to  her,  that 
Paula  could  come  in  by  relieving  him  of  the  necessity  of 
getting  back  into  practise.  Martin  would  look  out  for  the 
fixed  indebtedness  on  the  farm.  He  would  probably  be 
willing,  in  case  John  made  it  his  home  and  put  his  own 
mature  judgment  at  the  disposal  of  the  two  young  partners, 
to  finance  still  further  increases  in  the  investment.  But 
for  the  ordinary  expenses  of  living  during  the  next  year  or 
two,  Paula  should  cease  being  a  burden  and  become  a  sup- 


238  MARY  WOLLASTON 

port.  "Do  you  think,"  he  finished  by  asking,  "that  she  has 
any  idea  what  the  situation  really  is?" 

Mary  replied  to  this  question  a  little  absently.  "Father 
insisted  that  she  carry  out  the  Ravinia  contract.  She 
told  me  so  herself  and  seemed,  I  don't  know  why,  just  a 
little  resentful  about  it.  But  I'm  sure  she  can't  have  any 
idea  that  there  was  a  need  for  money  at  the  back  of  it.  It 
has  irritated  her  rather  whenever  she  has  caught  me  econo- 
mizing up  there.  And  father  will  never  tell  her  any  more 
pointedly  than  he  has,  you  can  be  sure.  Some  one  of  us 
will  have  to  do  it." 

"You're  on  very  good  terms  with  her,  aren't  you  ?"  Wal- 
lace asked.  He  added  instantly,  though  with  an  effort,  "I'm 
willing  to  tell  her  if  you  wish  me  to." 

She  smiled  very  faintly  at  that  for  she  knew  how  terrify- 
ing such  a  prospect  would  be  to  him.  "Whoever  told 
Paula,"  she  said,  "she'd  eventually  attribute  it,  I  think,  back 
to  me.  So  I  may  as  well,  and  rather  better,  do  it  directly." 

The  tension  slackened  between  them  for  a  while  after 
that.  The  talk  became  casual.  Wallace,  it  was  easy  to 
see,  was  enormously  relieved.  Mary  had  been  put  in  un- 
reserved possession  of  the  facts  and  had  endured  them 
better  than  he  could  possibly  have  hoped.  He  began  chat- 
ting about  the  farm  again,  not  now  as  an  incubus  but  as  a 
hopeful  possibility.  Both  the  boys  had  real  mettle  in  them 
and  might  be  expected  to  buckle  down  and  show  it.  Rush 
would  forget  the  disillusionment  of  his  holiday  hopes  when 
the  necessities  of  the  case  were  really  brought  home  to  him. 
And  as  for  Graham  .  .  . 

Wallace  broke  off  short  there,  flushed,  and  made  a 
rather  panicky  effort  to  retrieve  the  slip.  He  was  in  the 
family  enough  to  be  a  part  of  the  Graham  conspiracy. 
Poor  Graham,  distracted  by  her  innocent  inability  to  make 
up  her  mind  to  marry  him !  He  would  be  all  right  as  soon 


A  CASE  OF  NECESSITY  239 

as  her  maidenly  hesitations  should  have  come  to  an  end, 
and  she'd  made  him  the  happiest  man  in  the  world  with  the 
almost  inevitable  yes. 

She  had  gone  rather  white  by  the  end  of  a  long  silence. 
Finally : 

"Wallace,"  she  began  in  a  tone  so  tense  that  he  waited 
breathlessly  for  her  to  go  on,  "do  you  remember  I  asked 
you  once,  the  day  I  came  home  from  New  York,  if  you 
couldn't  find  me  a  job?  I  know  you  didn't  think  I  meant 
it  and  I  did  not  altogether — then.  But  I  mean  it  now.  I 
need  it — desperately. — Wallace,  I  can't  ever  marry  Graham. 
I  know  I  can't.  And  I  can't  go  on  being  dependent  on 
father  while  he's  dependent  on  Paula." 

He  caught  at  a  straw.  "Paula  is  really  very  fond  of 
you,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  in  a  way,"  Mary  agreed;  "though  she  sometimes 
has  regarded  me  a  little  dubiously.  But  if  she  ever  saw  me — 
coming  between  her  and  father,  or  father  turning  ever  so 
little  away  from  her — toward  me,  whether  it  was  any  of 
my  doing  or  not,  she'd — hate  me  with  her  whole  heart. 
It  may  not  be  very  logical  but  it's  true." 

Then  she  brought  him  back  from  the  digression.  "Any- 
how, it's  on  my  own  account,  not  Paula's — nor  even  father's 
— that  I  want  a  job.  Father  will  feel  about  it,  of  course, 
as  you  do  and  so  will  Rush  and — and  the  rest.  And  I 
don't  want  it  to  hurt  anybody  more  than  necessary.  I'd 
rather  stay  here  but  I  suppose  on  their  account  I'd  better 
go  away.  And  you  know  so  many  people — in  so  many 
places.  There's  your  sister  in  Omaha.  I  remember  how 
much  trouble  you  said  she  had  finding  a  nursery  govern- 
ess. I'd  be  pretty  good  at  that  I  think.  I  could  teach 
French  and — I'd  be  nice  to  children." 

For  a  moment  she  wildly  thought  she  had  won  him. 
She  saw  the  tears  come  into  his  eyes. 


240  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"Anything  I  have  in  the  world,  my  dear,  or  anything 
I  can  command  is  yours.  On  any  terms  you  like." 

But  there  he  disposed  of  the  tears  and  got  himself  to- 
gether, as  if  he'd  remembered  some  warning.  She  could 
imagine  Rush  over  the  telephone,  "Of  course,  she's  terribly 
run  down  with  that  damned  war  work  of  hers;  not  quite 
her  real  self,  you  know." 

She  saw  him  summon  a  resolute  smile  and  heard  the 
familiar  note  of  encouragement  in  his  voice.  "We'll 
think  about  it,"  he  told  her.  "After  all,  things  aren't, 
probably,  as  black  as  they  look.  And  sometimes  when  they 
look  darkest  it's  only  the  sign  that  they're  about  to  change 
their  faces  altogether.  Anyhow,  we've  stared  at  them  long 
enough  to-night,  haven't  we?  And  all  I  meant  was  to  take 
you  out  for  a  jolly  evening !  Don't  you  think  we  might  save 
it,  even  yet?  Is  there  anything  at  the  theatres  you'd  like 
to  see?" 

"Some  musical  show?"  she  asked.  "Yes,  I'd  like  that 
very  much.  Thank  you." 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  DRAMATIST 

MARY  returned  to  Ravinia — went  on  duty,  as  she  put 
it  to  Wallace — the  following  afternoon  rather  taut- 
drawn  in  her  determination  to  have  things  out  with  Paula 
at  once.    But  the  mere  attitude  and  atmosphere  of  the  place, 
as  before,  let  her  down  a  little. 

It  was  restful  to  have  her  days  filled  up  with  trivial 
necessary  duties;  an  hour's  errand  running  in  the  small 
car ;  a  pair  of  soiled  satin  slippers  to  clean  with  naptha ;  a 
stack  of  notes  to  answer  from  such  unknown  and  infatuate 
admirers  as  managed  to  escape  the  classification  feeble- 
minded and  were  entitled  therefore  to  have  the  fact  recog- 
nized (this  at  a  little  desk  in  the  corner  while  Novelli  at 
the  piano  and  Paula  ranging  about  the  room,  ran  over  her 
part  in  half- voice  in  the  opera  she  had  rehearsed  yesterday 
with  the  orchestra  and  was  to  sing  to-night),  a  run  to  the 
park  for  a  visit  to  Paula's  dressing-room  in  the  pavilion  in 
order  to  make  sure,  in  conference  with  her  dresser,  that  all 
was  in  order  for  to-night ;  a  return  to  the  cottage  in  time  to 
heat  Paula's  milk  (their  maid  of  all  work  couldn't  be  trusted 
not  to  boil  it)  ;  then  at  seven,  driving  Paula  to  the  park  for 
the  performance,  spending  the  evening  in  her  dressing- 
room  or  in  the  wings  chatting  sometimes  with  other  mem- 
bers of  the  force  whom  she  found  it  possible  to  get  ac- 
quainted with;  occasional  incursions  into  the  front  of  the 
house  to  note  how  something  went  or,  more  simply,  just 
to  hear  something  she  liked;  driving  Paula  home  again  at 
last,  undressing  her;  having  supper  with  her — the  most 
substantial  meal  of  the  day — talking  it  over  with  her;  and 
so,  like  Mr.  Pepys — to  bed. 

241 


242  MARY  WOLLASTON 

It  might  shock  Wallace  Hood,  a  schedule  like  that,  but 
there  were  days  when  to  Mary  it  was  a  clear  God-send. 

She  decided  within  the  first  twenty-four  hours  to  wait 
for  some  sort  of  lead  from  Paula  before  plunging  into  a 
discussion  of  her  father's  affairs.  It  would  take  the  edge 
off  if  the  thing  weren't  too  glaringly  premeditated.  Paula 
just  now  was  doing  all  she  could.  Mary  opened  all  her 
mail  and  would  know  if  any  offer  came  in  that  involved 
future  plans.  She  accepted  the  respite  gratefully. 

She  had  a  use  to  put  it  to.  For  the  first  two  or  three 
days  after  her  return,  she  had  not  been  able  to  turn  to  any- 
thing that  associated  itself  with  Anthony  March  without 
such  an  emotional  disturbance  as  prevented  her  from  think- 
ing at  all.  The  mere  physical  effect  of  those  sheets  of  score 
paper  was,  until  she  could  manage  to  control  it,  such  as  to 
make  any  continuance  of  the  labor  of  translating  his  opera, 
impossible. 

By  a  persistent  effort  of  will  she  presently  got  herself 
in  hand  however  and  went  on  not  only  with  her  translation 
but  with  the  other  moves  in  her  campaign  to  get  The 
Outcry  produced.  Her  first  thought  was  that  something 
might  be  accomplished  directly  through  LaChaise.  Her 
simple  plan  had  been  to  make  friends  with  him  so  that  when 
she  urged  the  arguments  for  producing  this  work,  they'd 
be — well — lubricated  by  his  liking  for  her. 

She  began  saying  things  to  him  on  a  rather  more  per- 
sonal note,  things  with  a  touch  of  challenge  in  them.  There 
was  no  gradual  response  to  this  but  suddenly — a  week  or 
ten  days  after  her  return  from  Hickory  Hill  this  was — he 
seemed  to  perceive  her  drift.  He  turned  a  look  upon  her, 
the  oddest  sort  of  look,  startled,  inquiring,  lighted  up  with 
a  happy  though  rather  incredible  surmise.  It  was  an  ex- 
clamatory look  which  one  might  interpret  as  saying, 
"What's  this !  Do  you  really  mean  it !" 


THE  DRAMATIST  243 

Mary  got  no  further  than  that.  She  didn't  mean  it, 
of  course,  a  serious  love-affair  with  LaChaise,  and  she 
tried  for  a  while  to  feel  rather  indignant  against  an  atti- 
tude toward  women  which  had  only  two  categories ;  did 
she  offer  amorous  possibilities  or  not.  An  attitude  that  had 
no  half  lights  in  it,  no  delicate  tints  of  chivalry  nor  romance. 
LaChaise  would  do  nothing  for  the  sake  of  her  blue  eyes. 
He  had  no  interest  whatever  in  that  indeterminate,  unstable 
emotional  compound  that  goes,  between  men  and  women, 
by  the  name  of  friendship. 

She  tried  to  call  this  beastly  and  feel  indignant  about  it, 
but  somehow  that  emotion  didn't  respond.  She  had  more 
real  sympathy  for  and  understanding  of  an  attitude  like  that 
than  she  had  for  one  like  Graham's.  It  was  simpler  and 
more  natural.  It  involved  you  in  no  such  labyrinths  of  far- 
fetched absurdities  and  exasperating  cross-purposes  as  Gra- 
ham's did. 

It  was  characteristically, — wasn't  it? — a  Latin  attitude; 
or  would  it  be  fairer  to  say  that  its  antithesis  as  exempli- 
fied by  Graham  was  a  northern  specialty?  She  extracted 
quite  a  bit  of  amusement  from  observing  some  of  the  re- 
sults of  individual  failures  to  understand  this  fundamental 
difference,  all  the  more  after  she  had  Jimmy  Wallace  to 
share  observations  with.  He  was  a  dramatic  critic,  but 
he  consented  to  take  a  fatherly,  or  better  avuncular,  interest 
in  the  Ravinia  season  during  the  month  of  his  musical 
colleague's  vacation. 

The  special  episode  they  focused  upon  was  Violet  Wil- 
liamson's flirtation  with  Fournier.  She  was  a  pretty  wo- 
man, still  comfortably  on  the  east  side  of  forty,  socially  one 
of  the  inner  ring,  spoiled,  rather,  by  an  enthusiastic  hus- 
band but  not,  thanks  to  her  own  good  sense,  very  seriously. 
James  Wallace  was  an  old  and  very  special  friend  of  hers 
and  she  commandeered  his  services  as  soon  as  he  appeared 


244  MARY  WOLLASTON 

at  Ravinia,  in  her  campaign  for  possession  of  the  French 
baritone. 

Mary  had  reflected  over  this  and  talked  it  out  pretty 
thoroughly  with  Jimmy  before  it  occurred  to  her  that  she 
might  be  able  to  turn  it  to  her  own  account — or  rather  to 
her  lover's.  For  that  matter,  why  not,  while  she  had  him 
under  her  hand,  recruit  Jimmy  as  an  aid  in  the  campaign  ? 

"Do  you  mind  being  used  for  ulterior  purposes?"  she 
asked  him. 

He  intimated  that  he  did  not  if  they  were  amusing,  as 
any  of  Mary's  were  pretty  sure  to  be. 

"I'm  interested  in  an  opera,"  she  told  him,  "or  rather, 
I'm  very  much  interested  in  a  man  who  has  written  one. 
Father  and  I  have  agreed  that  he's  a  great  person  and 
everybody  seems  willing  to  admit  that  he's  a  musical  genius. 
Paula  considered  the  opera,  but  gave  it  up  after  she  had 
kept  him  working  over  it  for  weeks  because  the  soprano 
part  wasn't  big  enough.  It  would  be  just  the  thing  for 
Fournier." 

Jimmy  raised  the  language  difficulty.  "The  book's  in 
English,  I  suppose,"  he  said. 

"It's  been  translated  into  French,"  Mary  said,  and  then 
admitted  authorship  by  adding,  "after  a  fashion ;  as  well  as 
an  amateur  like  me  could  do  it."  She  didn't  mind  a  bit 
how  much  Jimmy  knew.  Not  that  he  wasn't  capable  of  very 
acute  surmises  but  that  whatever  he  brought  up  he  wouldn't 
have  the  flutters  over. 

"Does  Fournier  like  it  himself?"  he  wanted  to  know. 
"Does  he  see  the  personal  possibilities  in  it,  I  mean  ?" 

"I  haven't  shown  it  to  him  yet,"  Mary  said.  "I  want 
him  to  hear  about  it  in  just  the  right  way  first.  If  Paula 
would  only  say  just  the  right  thing!  She  means  to  but  she 
forgets.  LaChaise  would  back  her  up,  I  think,  if  she  took 


THE  DRAMATIST  245 

the  lead.  Otherwise  .  .  .  well,  he  isn't  looking  for 
trouble,  I  suppose,  and  of  course,  it  would  mean  a  lot." 

"Somebody  has  to  put  his  back  into  an  enterprise  of  that 
sort,"  Jimmy  observed. 

"I  can't,  directly,"  she  said,  "not  with  LaChaise  nor  with 
Mr.  Eckstein.  But  you  see,"  she  went  on,  "if  Violet  hap- 
pened to  hear,  from  somebody  who  was  in  the  way  of  get- 
ting inside  information,  about  a  small  opera  that  had  a 
sensational  part  for  a  baritone,  she'd  work  it  and  make  her 
husband  too,  and  since  he's  one  of  the  real  backers  and  a 
friend  of  Mr.  Eckstein's,  they'd  be  likely  to  accomplish 
something." 

"Lead  me  to  it,"  said  Jimmy.  "Give  me  your  inside 
information  and  leave  Violet  to  me." 

He  got  a  little  overflow  from  the  fulness  of  her  heart 
at  that  that  would  have  rewarded  him  amply  for  a  more 
arduous  and  less  amusing  prospect  than  he  was  committed 
to.  It  was  always  touch  and  go  whether  this  summer 
plunge  into  musical  criticism  wouldn't  bore  him  frightfully. 
Pretentious  solemnities  of  any  kind  were  hard  for  him  to 
tolerate  and  an  opera  season  is,  of  course,  stuffed  with  these, 
even  a  democratized  blue-penciled  out-of-doors  affair  like 
this.  It  was  a  great  relief  to  find  him  a  mind  as  free  from 
sentimental  resonances  as  Mary  Wollaston's  swimming 
about  in  it.  They  saw  eye  to  eye  over  a  lot  of  things. 

They  were  in  whole-hearted  agreement  for  example 
about  a  certain  impresario,  Maxfield  Ware,  who  created  a 
sensation  among  the  company  and  staff  by  turning  up  osten- 
tatiously unaccounted  for  from  New  York  and  looking  in- 
tensely enigmatical  whenever  any  one  asked  him  any  ques- 
tions. He  was  a  sufficiently  well-known  figure  in  that  world 
for  surmises  to  spring  up  like  round-eyed  dandelions  wher- 
ever he  trod. 


246  MARY  WOLLASTON 

It  wasn't  long  before  everybody  knew,  despite  the  con- 
cealments which  his  ponderous  diplomacy  never  cast  aside, 
that  his  objective  was  Paula.  She  divined  this  before  he  had 
made  a  single  overt  move  in  her  direction  and  pointed  it 
out  to  Mary  with  a  genuine  pleasure  sounding  through  the 
tone  of  careless  amusement  she  chose  to  adopt. 

"You  wouldn't  have  anything  to  do  with  a  person  like 
that,  would  you?"  Mary  was  startled  into  exclaiming.  "Of 
course,  if  he  were  genuinely  what  he  pretends  to  be  and  the 
things  he  boasts  were  true  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  he's  genuine  enough,"  said  Paula.  "A  quarter  to 
a  half  as  good  as  he  pretends  and  that's  as  well  as  the  whole 
of  that  lot  will  average.  Though  he  isn't  the  sort  you  and 
John  would  take  to,  for  a  fact." 

It  was  not  the  first  time  Mary  had  found  herself  brack- 
eted with  her  father  in  just  this  way.  It  wasn't  a  sneering 
way,  hardly  hostile.  But  Mary  by  the  second  or  third  repe- 
tition began  reading  an  important  significance  into  it. 
Paula  in  her  instinctive  fashion  was  beginning  to  weigh  al- 
ternatives, one  life  against  the  other,  a  thing  it  wasn't 
likely  she  had  ever  attempted  before. 

There  was  a  tension  between  John  and  Paula  which 
Mary  saw  mounting  daily  over  the  question  of  his  next  visit 
to  Ravinia.  Paula  wanted  him,  was  getting  restless, 
moody,  as  nearly  as  it  was  possible  for  her  to  be  ill-natured 
over  his  abstention.  Yet  it  was  evident  enough  that  she 
had  not  invited  him  to  come;  furthermore,  that  she  meant 
not  to  invite  him.  Once  Mary  would  have  put  this  down  to 
mere  coquetry  but  this  explanation  failed  now  to  satisfy 
altogether.  There  was  something  that  lay  deeper  than  that. 
Some  sort  of  strain  between  them  dating  back,  she  sur- 
mised, to  the  talk  her  father  had  referred  to  down  in  North 
Carolina  in  the  jocular  assertion  that  he  had  told  Paula  she 


THE  DRAMATIST  247 

would  have  to  begin  now  supporting  the  family.    Had  the 
same  topic  come  up  again  during  his  visit  to  Ravinia? 

The  perception  of  this  strain  in  their  relation  increased 
Mary's  reluctance  to  bring  the  topic  up  herself,  in  default 
of  a  lead  from  Paula,  out  of  nowhere.  It  almost  seemed 
as  if  Paula  consciously  avoided  giving  her  such  a  lead, 
sheered  away  whenever  she  found  they  were  "getting 
warm"  in  that  direction. 

There  were  hours  when  the  undertaking  she  had  com- 
mitted herself  to  with  Wallace  Hood  seemed  fantastic.  Be- 
tween two  persons  like  her  father  and  Paula  a  meddler 
could  make  such  an  incalculable  amount  of  mischief.  All 
the  current  maxims  of  conduct  would  support  her  in  a 
refusal  to  interfere.  It  was  exclusively  their  affair,  wasn't 
it  ?  Why  not  let  them  settle  it  in  their  own  way  ? 

Yet  there  were  other  hours  when  she  put  her  procras- 
tinations down  to  sheer  cowardice.  This  occurred  when- 
ever she  got  a  letter  from  her  aunt  at  Hickory  Hill. 

Miss  Wollaston  was  a  dutiful  but  exceedingly  cautious 
correspondent,  but  beneath  the  surface  of  her  brisk  little 
bulletins  were  many  significant  implications.  Rush  had 
made  two  or  three  trips  to  town  for  consultations  with 
Martin  Whitney  .  .  .  Doctor  Steinmetz,  presence  unac- 
counted for,  had  been  a  guest  one  day  at  lunch  .  .  . 
Graham's  father  had  come  out  one  Saturday  and  after  he 
had  been  exhaustively  shown  over  the  place  the  men  had 
talked  until  all  hours  .  .  .  The  building  program  was  to 
be  curtailed  for  the  present ;  to  be  resumed,  perhaps  when 
prices  weren't  so  high  nor  labor  so  hard  to  get  .  .  . 
The  new  Holstein  calves  had  come.  Mary  had  been  told, 
hadn't  she,  of  the  decision  to  constitute  the  herd  in  this 
manner  instead  of  buying  all  milking  cows  .  .  .  Sylvia, 
declaring  that  Rush  and  Graham  had  got  too  solemn  to 


248  MARY  WOLLASTON 

live  with,  had  finally  obeyed  her  mother  and  gone  home  to 
the  Stannards'  summer  place  at  Lake  Geneva. 

Mary  read  these  letters  to  Paula  as  they  came  in 
the  hope  of  provoking  some  question  that  would  make  it 
possible  to  tell  John  Wollaston's  wife  the  tale  of  his  neces- 
sities, but  nothing  of  the  sort  happened.  Paula  did  observe 
(a  little  uneasily?)  apropos  of  Steinmetz'  visit: 

"John  says  he's  taken  quite  a  fancy  to  him.  He  told  me 
he  was  going  to  get  him  to  come  out  if  he  could." 

The  other  casts  brought  up  nothing  whatever. 

As  it  happened  Mary  paid  dear  for  her  procrastination. 
Paula  sent  her  into  town  one  day  with  a  long  list  of  errands, 
a  transparently  factitious  list,  which,  taken  in  connection 
with  an  unusual  interest  she  displayed  in  the  item  of  lunch, 
made  it  more  than  sufficiently  plain  to  Mary  that  for  the 
day  she  wasn't  wanted  at  Ravinia. 

She  concealed,  successfully  she  thought,  the  shock  she 
felt  at  these  new  tactics  of  Paula's,  studied  the  list  and  said 
she  thought  she  should  be  able  to  return  on  the  three  o'clock 
train.  She  made  a  point  however  of  not  coming  back  until 
the  four-fifteen.  It  was  nearly  six  before  she  got  back  to 
the  cottage,  but  the  contented  lazy  tone  in  which  Paula  from 
up-stairs  answered  her  hail,  made  it  plain  that  her  tardiness 
had  not  been  remarked.  However  Paula  had  spent  her  day, 
the  upshot  of  it  was  satisfactory. 

"Shall  I  come  up?"  Mary  asked. 

"Come  along,"  Paula  answered.  "I'm  not  asleep  or  any- 
thing and  besides  I  want  to  talk  to  you." 

"I  think  I  got  everything  you  want,"  Mary  said  from 
Paula's  doorway,  "or  if  not  exactly,  what  will  do  just 
about  as  well." 

Paula,  stretched  out  on  the  bed  rather  more  than  half 
undressed,  with  the  contented  languor  of  a  well  fed  lion- 
ess yet  with  some  passion  or  other  smoldering  in  her  eyes, 


THE  DRAMATIST  249 

made  no  pretense  at  being  interested  in  Mary's  success  in 
executing  her  commissions. 

"I  had  Max  to  lunch  to-day,"  she  said.  "I  knew  you 
hated  him  and  then  it  was  complicated  enough  anyway.  I 
suppose  it  might  have  been  better  if  I'd  told  you  so  right 
out  instead  of  making  up  all  those  things  for  you  to  do  in 
town,  but  I  couldn't  quite  find  the  words  to  put  it  in  some- 
how and  I  had  to  have  it  out  with  him.  He's  been  nagging 
at  me  for  a  week  and  he's  going  away  to-morrow.  He's 
given  me  until  then  to  think  it  over." 

There  was  no  use  trying  to  hurry  Paula.  Mary  took 
off  her  hat,  lighted  a  cigarette  and  settled  herself  in  the 
room's  only  comfortable  chair  before  she  asked,  "Think 
whnt  over?" 

"Oh,  the  whole  thing,"  said  Paula.  "What  he's  been 
harping  on  for  the  last  week. — He  is  a  loathsome  sort  of 
beast,"  she  conceded  after  a  little  pause.  "But  he's  right 
about  this.  Absolutely." 

Was  her  father  ever  fretted,  Mary  wondered,  by  this 
sort  of  thing?  Did  his  nerves  draw  tight,  and  his  muscles, 
too,  waiting  for  the  idea  behind  these  perambulations  to 
emerge  ? 

"I  can  imagine  a  lot  of  things  that  Mr.  Maxfield  Ware 
would  be  right  about,"  she  observed.  "Which  one  is  this?" 

"About  me,"  said  Paula.  "About  what  I'd  have  to  do  if 
I  wanted  to  get  anywhere.  He  thinks  I've  a  good  chance 
to  get  into  the  very  first  class,  along  with  Garden  and 
Farrar  and  so  on.  And  unless  I  can  do  that,  there's  no 
good  going  on.  I'd  never  be  happy  as  a  second  rater.  Well, 
that's  true.  And  my  only  chance  of  getting  to  the  top,  he 
says,  is  in  being  managed  just  right.  I  guess  that's  true, 
too.  He  says  that  if  I  take  this  Metropolitan  contract  that 
LaChaise  has  been  talking  about,  go  down  to  New  York 
as  one  of  their  'promising  young  American  sopranos'  to 


250  MARY  WOLLASTON. 

sing  on  off-nights  and  fill  in  and  make  myself  generally  use- 
ful, I  simply  won't  have  a  chance.  They  wouldn't  get 
excited  about  me  whatever  happened.  They'd  go  on  patron- 
izing me  and  yawning  in  my  face  no  matter  how  good  I 
was.  I'd  do  just  as  well,  he  says,  so  far  as  my  career  is 
concerned,  to  stay  right  here  in  Chicago  and  get  Campanini 
to  give  me  two  or  three  appearances  a  season; — make  a 
sort  of  amateur  night  of  it  for  the  gold  coast  to  buzz  about. 
I'd  have  a  lot  easier  time  that  way  and  it  would  come  to  the 
same  thing  in  the  end.  And  he  says  that  unless  I  want  to 
go  in  for  his  scheme,  that's  what  I'd  better  do.  Well,  and 
he's  right.  I  can  see  that,  plainly  enough." 

Mary  refrained  from  asking  what  Max's  scheme  was. 
She'd  learn,  no  doubt,  in  her  stepmother's  own  good  time. 
She  nodded  a  tentative  assent  to  Max's  general  premises 
and  waited. 

"He  certainly  was  frank  enough,"  Paula  went  on  after 
a  while.  "He  wants  to  make  a  real  killing  he  says.  Some- 
thing he's  never  quite  brought  off  before.  He  says  the 
reason  he's  always  failed  before  is  that  he's  had  to  go  and 
mix  a  love-affair  up  with  it  somehow.  He's  either  fallen  in 
love  with  the  woman  or  she  with  him  or  if  it  was  a  man  he 
was  managing,  they  both  went  mad  over  the  same  woman. 
Something  always  happened  anyhow  to  make  a  mess  of  it. 
But  he  says  he  isn't  interested  in  me  in  the  least  in  that 
way  and  that  he  can  see  plainly  enough  that  I'm  not  in  him. 
But  imagine  five  years  with  him !" 

She  broke  off  with  a  shudder,  not  a  real  shudder  though. 
The  sort  one  makes  over  a  purely  imaginary  prospect.  Some 
expression  of  her  feeling  must  have  betrayed  itself  in 
Mary's  face,  for  Paula,  happening  to  look  at  her  just  then, 
sat  up  abruptly. 

"Oh,  I  know,"  she  said.  "It's  all  very  well,  but  that's 
the  sort  of  person  you  have  to  go  in  with  and  that's  the 


THE  DRAMATIST  251 

sort  of  scheme  you  have  to  go  into  if  you're  going  to  get 
anywhere.  Something  of  the  sort  anyhow, — I  never  heard 
of  one  exactly  like  this.  But  this  is  what  he  proposes : 
we're  each  to  put  up  twenty  thousand  dollars.  That's  easy 
enough  as  far  as  I'm  concerned  because  what  I  put  up  isn't 
to  be  spent  at  all.  It's  just  to  be  turned  over  to  somebody 
— some  banker  like  Martin  Whitney — as  a  guarantee  that  I 
won't  break  my  contract.  He  says  he  wouldn't  take  on  any- 
body in  my  position  without  a  guarantee  like  that.  He's  to 
spend  the  money  he  puts  up  for  publicity  and  other  things 
but  he's  to  get  paid  back  out  of  what  I  earn.  He's  to  be 
my  manager  absolutely.  I'm  to  go  wherever  he  says  ;  carry 
out  any  contracts  he  makes  for  me.  He's  to  pay  my  ex- 
penses and  guarantee  me  ten  thousand  a  year  beyond  that. 
If  he  doesn't  pay  me  that  much,  then  it's  he  that  breaks  the 
contract.  And  of  course,  he  can't  make  me  do  anything 
that  would  ruin  my  voice  or  my  health.  He  says  he's  going 
to  work  me  like  a  dog.  That's  what  he  thinks  I  need.  He 
says  he  can  get  me  in  with  the  Chicago  company  for  their 
road  tour  before  their  regular  season  opens  here.  He  won't 
let  me  sing  either  in  Chicago  or  New  York  until  I've  landed, 
but  he  wants  me  to  go  to  New  York  this  winter  and  coach 
with  Scotti,  if  we  can  get  him.  Then  go  to  Mexico  City 
in  the  spring  and  then  down  to  Buenos  Aires  for  their 
winter  season  there.  That's  July  and  August,  of  course, 
when  it's  summer  up  here.  By  that  time  he  thinks  we'll 
be  ready  for  Europe;  London  or  Paris.  He's  rather  in 
favor  of  London.  He  knows  all  the  ropes  and  he'll  buy 
the  people  that  have  to  be  bought  and  square  the  people 
that  have  to  be  squared  and  work  the  publicity.  He  says 
he's  the  best  publicity  man  in  the  world  and  I  guess  he 
knows.  Then  after  a  year  or  two  over  there,  he  thinks 
we'll  be  ready  to  come  back  to  the  Metropolitan  and  clean 
up." 


252  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"And  what,"  asked  Mary,  "is  his  share  of  the  clean-up 
to  be?" 

"Oh,  a  half,"  said  Paula;  "we'd  be  equal  partners. 
That's  fair  enough,  I  suppose.  I  sat  there  all  through 
lunch  while  he  was  talking,  hating  him ;  hating  his  big  blue 
chin,  and  his  necktie  and  his  great  shiny  finger-nails  and  the 
way  he  ate,  and  feeling,  of  course,  perfectly  frightfully  un- 
happy. I  told  him  I'd  let  him  know  what  I  would  do  some- 
time before  to-morrow  noon,  and  as  soon  as  I  could  I  got 
rid  of  him.  And  then  I  came  up  here  and  cried  and  cried. 
And  that's  something  I  haven't  done  for  a  long  while.  I 
felt  as  if  he  was  a  big  spider  that  had  been  running  about  all 
over  me  tying  me  up  in  his  web%  And  as  if  I  was  a  fly  and 
couldn't  get  out.  There  is  something  spidery  about  him, 
you  know.  The  way  he  goes  back  and  forth  and  the  way 
he's  so  patient  and  indirect  about  it  all.  It  seemed  like  the 
end  of  the  world  to  me  before  he  finished,  as  if  I  never  was 
going  to  see  John  again.  Oh,  I  cried  my  eyes  out.  Well, 
and  then  about  an  hour  ago  I  came  to.  I  realized  that  I 
hadn't  signed  his  horrible  contract  and  that  I  needn't.  And 
that  when  this  beastly  season  was  over, — and  it  isn't  going 
to  last  much  longer,  thank  goodness, — I  could  go  home  to 
John  and  lock  up  the  piano  and  never  look  at  a  score  again. 
It  was  like  coming  out  of  a  nightmare." 

Mary  dared  not  stop  to  think.     She  took  the  plunge. 

"There's  something  about  father  you've  got  to  be  told. 
I  promised  Wallace  Hood  weeks  ago  that  I'd  tell  you.  I 
guess  he  and  Martin  Whitney  think  you  know  about  it  by 
now." 

"Something  I've  got  to  be  told  about  John?"  Paula 
echoed  incredulously.  "Why,  I  was  talking  with  him  over 
the  telephone  not  ten  minutes  before  you  came  in." 

"Oh,  I  know.  It's  nothing  like  that,"  Mary  said.  "But 
they  say  he  has  tuberculosis.  Not  desperately,  not  so  that 


THE  DRAMATIST  253 

he  can't  get  well  if  he  takes  care  of  it.  If  he  lives  out-of- 
doors  and  doesn't  worry  or  try  to  work.  But  if  he  takes 
up  his  practise  again  this  fall,  they  say, — Doctor  Stein- 
metz  says, — that  it  will  be — committing  suicide.  That's  one 
thing.  And  the  other  is  that  he's  practically  bankrupt. 
Anyhow,  that  for  a  year  or  two,  until  he  can  get  back  into 
practise,  he'll  need  help.  That's  why  Wallace  and  Mr. 
Whitney  wanted  you  told  about  it." 

There  hadn't  been  a  movement  nor  a  sound  from  Paula. 
Mary,  at  the  end  of  that  speech  was  breathless  and  rather 
frightened. 

Finally  Paula  asked,  "Does  he  know  about  it? — his 
health  I  mean." 

"He's  been  told,"  Mary  answered,  "but  he  doesn't  be- 
lieve it.  They  nearly  always  are  skeptical,  Doctor  Stein- 
metz  says." 

"He's  probably  right  to  be.  He's  a  better  doctor  than 
six  of  Steinmetz  will  ever  be." 

Another  pause;  then,  once  more  from  Paula,  "Did  he 
tell  you  about  the  other  thing, — about  his  money  troubles, — 
when  you  were  down  in  North  Carolina  with  him?" 

Mary  flushed  at  the  hostile  ring  there  was  to  that.  "He 
told  me  a  little,"  she  said,  "but  not  much  more,  I  thought, 
than  he  had  already  told  you." 

"Told  me?"  Paula  swung  herself  off  the  bed  and  on  to 
her  feet  in  one  movement.  "He  told  me  nothing." 

"He  urged  you  to  carry  out  your  Ravinia  contract, 
didn't  he  ?"  Mary  asked,  as  steadily  as  she  could. 

Paula  stood  over  her  staring.  "Oh,"  she  exclaimed,  and 
a  moment  later  she  repeated  the  ejaculation  in  a  drier  tone 
and  with  a  downward  inflection.  She  added  presently,  "I'm 
not  clever  the  way  you  are  at  taking  hints.  That's  the  thing 
it  will  be  just  as  well  for  you  both  to  remember."  She 
began  bruskly  putting  on  her  dressing-gown.  "I'm  going 


254  MARY  WOLLASTON 

down-stairs  to  telephone  to  Max,"  she  explained.  "He's  got 
the  paper  all  drawn  up,  not  the  final  contract  but  an  agree- 
ment to  sign  one  of  the  sort  I  told  you  about.  I'm  going 
to  tell  him  that  if  he  will  bring  it  back  with  him  now,  I'll 
sign  it." 

Mary  stood  between  her  and  the  door.  "Don't  you  think 
it  would  be — fairer  to  wait  ?"  she  asked ;  "before  you  signed 
a  thing  like  that.  Until  at  least,  you  were  no  longer  angry 
with  me  for  having  told  you  too  much  or  with  father  be- 
cause he  had  told  you  too  little." 

Paula  pulled  up  at  that  and  stood  looking  at  her  step- 
daughter with  a  thoughtful  expression  that  was  almost  a 
smile.  "I  am  angry,"  she  admitted,  "or  I  was,  and  just 
exactly  about  that.  It's  queer  the  way  you  Wollastons,  you 
and  your  father,  anyhow,  are  always — getting  through  to 
things  like  that.  What  you  say  is  fair  enough.  I  guess 
you're  always  fair.  Can't  help  being,  somehow.  But  I  can't 
put  off  telephoning  to  Max.  You  see  I  called  up  John  at 
Hickory  Hill  an  hour  ago.  I  told  him  I  had  made  up  my 
mind  to  stop  singing.  I  told  him  I  didn't  want  any  career. 
That  I  just  wanted  to — belong  to  him.  And  I  asked  him  to 
come  to  me  as  fast  as  he  could.  He's  on  the  way  now. 
So  it's  important,  you  see,  that  Max  should  get  here  first." 


CHAPTER  XX 

TWO  WOMEN  AND  JOHN 

PAULA  seemed  calm  enough  after  that  one  explosion 
but  she  moved  along  toward  the  accomplishment  of  her 
purpose,  to  get  herself  thoroughly  committed  to  Max  before 
John's  arrival,  with  the  momentum  of  a  liner  leaving  its 
pier.  Mary  made  two  or  three  more  attempts  at  dissuasion 
but  their  manifest  futility  kept  her  from  getting  any  real 
power  into  them.  She  was,  to  tell  the  truth,  in  a  panic  over 
the  prospect  of  that  evening; — her  father  arriving  trium- 
phant in  Paula's  supposed  surrender  to  find  Maxfield  Ware 
with  his  five  years'  contract  in  his  pocket.  And  the  re- 
sponsibility for  the  disaster  would  be  attributed  to  herself ; 
was  indeed  so  attributable  with  a  kind  of  theatrical  com- 
pleteness seldom  to  be  found  in  life.  It  didn't  often  happen 
that  any  one  was  as  entirely  to  blame  for  a  calamity  to  some 
one  else  as  Mary  was  for  this  volte-face  of  Paula's. 

She  did  not  run  away  altogether.  Paula,  indeed,  didn't 
know  that  she  had  fled  at  all,  for  Maxfield  Ware's  tardiness 
about  coming  back  the  second  time  supplied  her  with  a  pre- 
text. 

It  was  nearly  eight  o'clock  before  he  came  and  Paula, 
who  was  momentarily  expecting  John's  arrival  by  then,  was 
in  an  agony  of  impatience  to  sign  his  papers  and  get  him  out 
of  the  house  again.  Ware  may  have  divined  her  wish  and 
loitered  out  of  mischievous  curiosity  as  to  the  cause  of  it. 
Or  he  may,  merely,  have  been  prolonging  an  experience 
which  he  found  agreeable.  Anyhow,  he  wouldn't  be  hur- 
ried and  he  wouldn't  go.  But  Paula  finally  turned  a  look  of 
despairing  appeal  upon  Mary  who  thereupon  announced  her 
intention  of  going  to  to-night's  performance  in  the  park. 

255 


256  MARY  WOLLASTON 

She  would  drive,  of  course,  and  would  be  glad  to  take  Mr. 
Ware  along.  Or,  for  that  matter,  she  would  set  him  down 
first  wherever  he  might  want  to  go.  He  smiled  upon  her 
with  the  fatuous  smile  of  one  who  finds  he  has  made  an 
unexpected  conquest  and  said  he  would  be  delighted  to  ac- 
company Miss  Wollaston  anywhere. 

She  took  him,  driving  pretty  fast,  to  the  Moraine  Hotel 
and  was  glad  the  distance  was  not  greater,  for  after  various 
heavy-handed  and  unquenchable  preliminaries  he  kissed  her 
as  nearly  on  the  mouth  as  possible,  clinging  to  a  half-lit 
cigar  the  while,  just  before  she  whipped  around  into  the 
hotel  drive.  She  avoided  a  collision  with  one  of  the  stone 
posts  narrowly  enough  to  startle  him  into  releasing  her,— 
he  hadn't  realized  the  turn  was  so  close — and  stopped 
at  the  lighted  carriage  door  with  a  jerk  that  left  him  no 
option  but  to  get  out  at  once. 

She  nodded  a  curt  good  night  and  drove  back  to  th«*. 
park;  went  to  one  of  the  dressing-rooms  and  washed  he^ 
face.  Then  she  came  around  in  front  to  hear  Edith  Mason 
sing  Romeo  and  Juliet.  She  didn't  get  just  the  effect  she 
anticipated  from  this  lovely  performance  because  Polacco, 
who  is  Miss  Mason's  husband,  came  and  sat  down  beside 
her — there  was  nothing  spidery  about  him,  thank  goodness 
— and  in  a  running  and  vivacious'  commentary  expressed 
his  lively  contempt  for  this  opera  of  Gounod's.  At  its  best 
it  was  bad  Faust.  Its  least  intolerable  melodies  were  quota- 
tions from  Faust, — an  assertion  which  he  proved  from  time 
to  time  by  singing,  and  not  very  softly  either,  the  original 
themes  to  the  wrath  of  all  who  sat  within  a  twenty-five  foot 
radius  of  them. 

Mary  felt  grateful  to  him  for  giving  her  something  that 
was  not  maddening  to  think  about  and  after  the  perform- 
ance went  with  him  and  his  wife  to  supper  so  that  it  was 
well  after  midnight  before  she  returned  to  the  cottage. 


TWO  WOMEN  AND  JOHN  257 

It  was  an  ineffable  relief  to  find  it  dark.  Her  habit  on 
\varm  nights  was  to  sleep  on  the  gloucester  swing  in  the 
screened  veranda  and  she  made  it  her  bed  to-night,  though 
beyond  a  short  uneasy  doze  of  two,  she  didn't  sleep  at  all. 

At  half  past  eight  or  so,  just  after  she  had  sat  down  to 
breakfast,  she  heard  her  father  coming  down  the  stairs. 
Sne  tried  to  call  to  him  but  could  command  no  voice  and  so 
waited,  frozen,  until  he  appeared  in  the  doorway. 

"I  thought  I  heard  you  stirring  down  here  and  that  it 
perhaps  meant  breakfast.  Paula  won't  be  down,  I  suppose, 
for  hours.  She  fell  asleep  about  four  o'clock  and  has  been 
sleeping  quietly  ever  since." 

This  was  exactly  like  Paula,  of  course.  She  was  the 
vortex  of  the  whole  tempest,  but  when  she  had  thoroughly 
exhausted  the  emotional  possibilities  of  it  she  sank  into 
peaceful  slumber  like  a  baby  after  a  hard  cry. 

No  wonder  she  was  too  much  for  these  two  Wollastons 
who  sat  now  with  dry  throats  and  tremulous  hands  over  the 
mockery  of  breakfast !  Mary,  although  she  knew,  asked  her 
father  whether  he  wanted  his  coffee  clear  or  with  cream  in 
it  and  having  thus  broken  the  spell,  went  on  with  a  gasp : 

"I'm  glad  Paula  isn't  coming  down.  It  gives  you  a 
better  chance  to  tell  me  just  how  you  feel  about  my  having 
interfered.  I  did  run  away  last  night.  You  guessed  that, 
I  suppose.  But  it  wasn't  to  evade  it  altogether.  My — 
whipping,  you  know." 

It  had  an  odd  effect  on  both  of  them,  this  reference  to 
her  childhood;  her  hand  moved  round  the  table  rim  and 
covered  his  which  rested  on  the  edge  of  it. 

"Did  your  mother  ever  punish  you?"  he  asked.  "Cor- 
poreally? It's  my  recollection  that  she  did  not.  I  was 
always  the  executioner.  I  doubt  now  if  that  was  quite  fair." 

"Perhaps  not,"  she  asserted  dubiously.  "In  general  it 
isn't  fair  of  course.  It  probably  wasn't  in  the  case  of  Rush. 


258  MARY  WOLLASTON 

But  with  me, — I  don't  think  I  could  have  borne  it  to  have 
mother  beat  me.  It  would  have  seemed  an  insufferable 
affront.  I'd  have  hated  her  for  it.  But  there  was  a  sort 
of  satisfaction  in  having  you  do  it." 

After  another  moment  of  silence  she  smiled  and  added, 
"I  suppose  a  Freudian  would  carry  off  an  admission  like 
that  to  his  cave  and  gnaw  over  it  for  hours." 

He  stared  at  her,  shocked,  incredulous.  "What  do  you 
know  about  Freud?"  he  demanded. 

"One  couldn't  live  for  two  years  within  a  hundred  yards 
of  Washington  Square  without  knowing  at  least  as  much 
about  it  as  that,"  she  told  him, — and  was  glad  of  the  en- 
trance of  the  maid  with  another  instalment  of  the  breakfast. 
There  was  no  more  talk  between  them  during  the  meal. 
But  at  the  end  of  it  she  faced  him  resolutely. 

"We  must  have  this  out,  dad.  And  isn't  now  as  good  a 
time  as  any  ?" 

He  followed  her  out  into  the  veranda  but  the  sounds 
from  the  dining-room,  where  the  maid  had  come  in  to  clear 
away  the  breakfast,  disturbed  him  so  Mary  suggested  a 
walk. 

"Get  your  hat  and  we'll  go  over  to  the  lake.  I  know 
a  nice  place  not  far,  an  open  field  right  at  the  edge  of  the 
bluff  with  one  big  tree  to  make  it  shady.  At  this  hour  of 
the  morning  we  are  sure  to  have  it  all  to  ourselves." 

He  said  as  they  walked  along,  "I've  no  reproaches  for 
you.  Not  this  morning.  I've  thought  over  a  lot  of  ground 
since  four  o'clock." 

He  said  nothing  more  to  the  point  until  they  reached  the 
spot  which  Mary  had  selected  as  their  destination — it  lived 
up  handsomely  to  all  her  promises — and  settled  themselves 
under  the  shade  of  the  big  tree. 

"I  suppose,"  he  added  then,  "that  I  ought  to  forgive 
Whitney  and  Hood.  Their  intentions  were  the  best  and 
kindest,  of  course.  But  I  find  that  harder  to  do." 


TWO  WOMEN  AND  JOHN  259 

He  sat  back  against  the  trunk  of  the  tree,  facing  out 
over  the  lake ;  she  disposed  herself  cross-legged  on  the  grass 
near  by  just  within  reaching  distance.  She  offered  him  her 
cigarette  case  but  he  declined.  Of  late  years,  since  his 
marriage  to  Paula,  he  had  smoked  very  little.  As  a  substi- 
tute, now,  he  picked  up  a  forked  bit  of  branch,  and  began 
whittling  it. 

"I'm  as  much  to  blame  as  they  are,"  she  said,  presently. 
"More,  really.  Because,  if  I  hadn't  procrastinated — out  of 
cowardice,  mostly, — until  yesterday,  when  she  was  half-way 
over  the  edge,  it  might  never  have  come  to  Maxfield  Ware 
at  all.  After  the  situation  had  dramatized  itself  like  that, 
there  was  only  one  thing  she  could  do.  Of  course,  they 
didn't  foresee  that  five  years'  contract,  any  more  than  I  did." 

He  nodded  assent,  though  rather  absently  to  this.  "I'm 
not  much  interested  in  the  abstract  ethics  of  it,"  he  said. 
"It's  disputable,  of  course,  how  far  any  one  can  be  justified 
in  making  a  major  interference  in  another's  life;  one  that 
deprives  him  of  the  power  of  choice.  That's  what  you  have 
done  to  me — the  three  of  you.  If  the  premises  are  right, 
and  the  outcome  prosperous,  there's  something  to  be  said 
for  it.  But  in  this  case  .  .  ." 

"They  aren't  mistaken,  are  they,  dad?  Wallace  and 
Mr.  Whitney?— Or  Doctor  Steinmetz?" 

"Why,  it's  reasonable  to  suppose  that  Whitney  under- 
stands my  financial  condition  better  than  I  do.  I  mean  that. 
It's  not  a  sneer.  But  what  he  and  Hood  don't  allow  for  is 
that  I've  never  tried  to  make  money.  They've  no  idea  what 
my  earning  power  would  be  if  I  were  to  turn  to  and  make 
that  a  prime  consideration.  A  year  of  it  would  take  me  out 
of  the  woods,  I  think." 

She  waited,  breathless,  for  him  to  deal  with  the  third 
name.  She  was  pretty  well  at  one  with  Paula  in  the  relative 
valuation  she  put  upon  her  father's  opinion  and  that  of  the 
throat  and  lung  specialist. 


260  MARY  WOLL ASTON 

"Oh,  as  for  Steinmetz,"  John  Wollaston  said,  after  a 
pause,  querulously,  "he's  a  good  observer.  There's  noth- 
ing to  be  said  against  him  as  a  laboratory  man.  But  he 
has  the  vice  of  all  German  scientists ;  he  doesn't  understand 
imponderables.  Never  a  flash  of  intuition  about  him.  He 
managed  to  intimidate  Darby  into  agreeing  with  him. 
Neither  of  them  takes  my  recuperative  powers  into  ac- 
count." 

He  seemed  to  feel  that  this  wasn't  a  very  strong  line  to 
take  and  the  next  moment  he  conceded  as  much. 

"But  suppose  they  were  right,"  he  flashed  round  at  her. 
"Am  I  not  still  entitled  to  my  choice  ?  I've  lived  the  greater 
part  of  my  life.  I've  pulled  my  weight  in  the  boat.  It 
should  be  for  me  to  choose  whether  I  spend  the  life  I  have 
left  in  two  years  or  in  twenty.  If  they  want  to  call  that 
suicide,  let  them.  I've  no  religion  that's  real  enough  to 
make  a  valid  argument  against  my  right  to  extinguish  myself 
if  I  choose." 

She  wasn't  shocked.  It  was  characteristic  of  their 
talks  together,  this  free  range  among  ethical  abstractions, 
especially  on  his  part. 

"You  act  on  the  other  theory  though,"  she  pointed  out 
to  him.  "Think  of  the  people  you've  patched  together  just 
so  that  they  can  live  at  most  another  wretched  year  or 
two." 

"That's  a  different  thing,"  he  said.  "Or  rather  it  comes 
to  the  same  thing.  The  question  of  shortening  one's  life 
is  one  that  nobody  has  a  right  to  decide  except  for  himself." 

Then  he  asked  abruptly.  "What  sort  of  person  is  Max- 
field  Ware?" 

She  attempted  no  palliations  here. 

"He  kissed  me  last  night,"  she  said,  "taking  his  cigar  out 
of  his  mouth  for  the  purpose.  He's  not  a  sort  of  person 
I  can  endure  or  manage.  Paula  hates  him  as  much  as  I  do, 


TWO  WOMEN  AND  JOHN.  261 

but  she  can  manage  him.  He'd  never  try  to  kiss  her  like 
that." 

"Oh,  God!"  cried  John.  "It's  intolerable."  He  flung 
away  his  stick,  got  to  his  feet  and  walked  to  the  edge  of  the 
bluff.  "Think  of  her  working,  traveling, — living  almost, — 
with  a  man  like  that !  You  say  she  can  manage  him ;  that 
she  can  prevent  him  from  trying  to  make  love  to  her.  Well, 
what  does  that  mean,  if  you're  right,  but  that  she — under- 
stands him;  his  talk;  his  ideas;  his  point  of  view.  You 
can't  make  yourself  intelligible  to  a  man  like  that ;  she  can. 
It's  defilement  to  meet  his  mind  anywhere — any  angle  of  it. 
She's  given  him  carte  blanche,  she  says,  to  manage  the 
publicity  for  her.  Do  you  realize  what  that  means  ?  He's 
licensed  to  try  to  make  the  public  believe  anything  that  he 
thinks  would  heighten  their  interest  in  her.  That  she 
dresses  indecently;  that  she's  a  frivolous  extravagant  fool; 
that  she  has  lovers.  You  know  how  that  game  is  played." 

Mary  did  know.  She  ran  over  a  list  of  the  great  names 
and  opposite  every  one  of  them  there  sprang  into  her  mind 
the  particular  bit  of  vulgar  reclame  that  had  been  in  its 
day  some  press  agent's  masterpiece.  She  was  able  further 
to  see  that  Paula  would  regard  the  moves  of  this  game 
with  a  large-minded  tolerance  which  would  be  incompre- 
hensible to  John.  After  all,  that  was  the  way  to  take  it. 
If  you  were  a  real  luminary,  not  just  a  blank  white  surface, 
all  the  mud  that  Mr.  Maxfield  Ware  could  splash  wouldn't 
matter.  You  burnt  it  off.  None  of  those  great  names  was 
soiled. 

She  tried  to  say  something  like  this  to  her  father,  but 
didn't  feel  sure  that  she  quite  had  his  attention.  He  did 
quiet  down  again  however  and  resumed  his  seat  at  the  foot 
of  the  tree.  Presently  he  said : 

"She's  doing  it  for  me.  Because  my  incompetence  has 
forced  it  upon  her.  She'd  have  taken  the  other  thing ;  had 


262  MARY  WOLLASTON 

really  chosen  it."  Then  without  a  pause,  but  with  a  new 
intensity  he  shot  in  a  question.  "That's  true,  isn't  it  ?  She 
meant  what  she  said  over  the  telephone?"  As  Mary  hesi- 
tated over  her  answer  he  added  rather  grimly,  "You  can 
be  quite  candid  about  it.  I  don't  know  which  answer  I 
want." 

"She  meant  every  word  she  said  over  the  telephone," 
Mary  assured  him.  "You  couldn't  doubt  that  if  you  had 
seen  her  as  I  did  afterward." 

She  didn't  pretend  though  that  this  was  the  complete 
answer.  The  reflective  tone  in  which  she  spoke  made  it 
clear  that  there  was  more  to  it  than  that. 

"Go  on,"  John  said,  "tell  me  the  rest  of  it.  I  think,  per- 
haps, you  understand  her  better  than  I  do." 

Alary  took  her  time  about  going  on  and  she  began  a 
little  doubtfully.  "I  always  begin  by  being  unjust  to  Paula," 
she  said.  "That's  my  instinct,  I  suppose,  reproaching  her 
for  not  doing  what  she  would  do  if  she  were  like  me.  But 
afterward  when  I  think  her  out,  I  believe  I  understand  her 
pretty  well. 

"Paula  exaggerates,"  she  went  on  after  another  reflec- 
tive pause.  "She  must  see  things  large  in  order  to  move 
among  them  in  a  large  way.  Her  gestures,  those  of  her 
mind  I  mean,  are — sweeping.  If  she  weren't  so  good- 
natured,  our — hair-splitting  ways  would  annoy  her.  Then 
it's  necessary  for  her  to  feel  that  she's— conquering  some- 
thing." 

That  last  word  was  barely  audible  and  the  quality  of  the 
silence  which  followed  it  drew  John  Wollaston's  gaze  which 
had  been  straying  over  the  lake,  around  to  the  speaker.  She 
had  been  occupying  her  hands  while  she  talked,  collecting 
tiny  twigs  and  acorn  cups  that  happened  to  be  within  reach' 
but  now  she  was  tensely  still  and  paler  than  her  wont,  he 
thought. 


TWO  WOMEN  AND  JOHN;  263 

"You  needn't  be  afraid  to  say  what's  in  your  mind,"  he 
assured  her. 

"It  wasn't  that,"  she  told  him.  "I  realized  that  I  had 
been  quoting  somebody  else.  Anthony  March  said  once  of 
Paula  that  if  she  had  not  been  an  artist  she  might  have 
been  a  dompteiise." 

John  settled  himself  more  comfortably  against  his  tree 
trunk.  A  contact  like  this  with  his  daughter's  mind  must 
have  been  inexpressibly  comforting  to  him  after  a  night  like 
the  one  he  had  just  spent.  Its  rectitude ;  its  sensitiveness ; 
the  mere  feel  and  texture  of  it,  put  his  jangling  nerves  in 
tune. 

"Is  Ware  the  wild  beast  she  has  an  inclination  to  tame 
in  this  instance  ?"  he  asked. 

"He's  nothing  but  a  symbol  of  it,"  Mary  said.  Then 
she  managed  to  get  the  thing  a  little  clearer.  "What  she'd 
have  done  if  she'd  been  like  us  and  what  we'd  have  had 
her  do — Mr.  Whitney  and  Wallace  and  I, — would  have 
been  to  make  a  sort  of  compromise  between  her  position  as 
your  wife  and  a  career  as  Paula  Carresford.  We'd  have 
had  her  sign  a  contract  to  sing  a  few  times  this  winter 
with  the  Metropolitan  or  the  Chicago  company,  go  on  a 
concert  tour  perhaps  for  a  few  weeks,  even  give  singing 
lessons  or  sing  in  a  church  choir.  That  would  probably 
have  been  Mr.  Whitney's  idea.  Rather  more  than  enough  to 
pay  her  way  and  at  the  same  time  leave  as  much  of  her  to 
you  as  possible. 

"But  that's  the  last  thing  in  the  world  it  would  be  pos- 
sible for  Paula  to  do.  She  must  see  a  great  career  on  one 
side, — see  herself  as  Geraldine  Farrar's  successor, — and  on 
the  other  side  she  must  see  a  perfect  unflawed  life  with  you. 
So  that  whichever  she  chooses  she  will  have  a  sense  of 
making  the  greatest  possible  sacrifice.  She  couldn't  have 
said  to  you  what  she  did  over  the  telephone  if  Mr.  Ware 


MARY  WOLLASTON 


hadn't  convinced  her  that  a  great  career  was  open  to  her  and 
she  couldn't  have  signed  his  contract  if  it  had  not  involved 
sacrificing  you." 

She  propped  herself  back  against  her  hands  with  a  sigh 
of  fatigue.  "There's  some  of  the  hair-splitting  Paula  talks 
about,"  she  observed. 

"It  may  be  fine  spun,"  her  father  said  thoughtfully,  "but 
it  seems  to  me  to  hold  together.  Isn't  there  any  more  of 
it?" 

"Well,  it  was  balanced  like  thai,  you  see,"  Mary  went 
on;  "set  for  the  climax,  like  the  springs  in  a  French  play, 
when  I  came  along  at  just  the  moment  and  with  just  the 
word,  to  topple  it  over.  Being  Paula,  she  couldn't  help  doing 
exactly  what  she  did.  So,  however  it  comes  out,  I  shall  be 
the  one  person  she  won't  be  able  to  forgive." 

She  knew  from  the  startled  look  he  turned  upon  her 
that  this  last  shot  had  come  uncannily  close.  She  fancied 
she  must  almost  literally  have  echoed  Paula's  words.  If 
she  needed  any  further  confirmation  she  would  have  found 
it  in  the  rather  panicky  way  in  which  he  set  about  trying  to 
convince  her  that  she  was  mistaken,  if  not  in  the  fact  at 
least  in  the  permanence  of  it. 

She  insisted  no  further,  made  indeed  no  further  attempt 
at  all  to  carry  the  theme  along  and  though  she  listened  and 
made  appropriate  replies  when  they  were  called  for,  she  let 
her  wordless  thought  drift  away  to  a  dream  that  it  was 
Anthony  March  who  shared  this  shade  and  sunshine  with 
her  and  that  veiled  blue  horizon  yonder.  It  was  easier  to 
do  since  her  father  had  drifted  into  a  reverie  of  his  own. 
They  need  not  have  lingered  for  they  had  sufficiently  talked 
away  all  possible  grounds  of  misunderstanding,  even  if  they 
had  not  reconciled  their  disagreement. 

It  occurred  to  her  to  suggest  that  they  go  back,  but  she 
dismissed  the  impulse  with  no  more  than  a  glancing  thought, 


TWO  WOMEN  AND  JOHN  265 

It  was  his  burden,  not  hers,  that  remained  to  be  shouldered 
at  the  cottage  and  it  might  be  left  to  him  to  choose  his 
own  time  for  taking  it  up.  Paula  seldom  came  down  much 
before  noon  anyhow. 

As  for  John  Wollaston,  he  was  very  tired.  Paula's  vol- 
canic moments  always  exhausted  him.  He  never  could 
derationalize  his  emotions,  cut  himself  free;  and  while  he 
felt  just  as  intensely  as  she  did,  he  had  to  carry  the  whole 
superstructure  of  himself  along  on  those  tempestuous  voy- 
ages. In  the  mood  Paula  had  left  him  in  this  morning, 
there  was  nothing  in  the  world  that  could  have  satisfied 
and  restored  him  as  did  his  daughter's  companionship.  The 
peace  of  this  wordless  prolongation  of  their  talk  together 
was  something  he  lacked,  for  a  long  while,  the  will  to  break. 

It  was  not  far  short  of  noon  when  they  came  back  into 
the  veranda  together.  He  had  walked  the  last  hundred 
yards,  after  a  look  at  his  watch,  pretty  fast  and  after  a 
glance  into  both  the  down-stairs  rooms,  he  called  up-stairs 
to  his  wife  in  a  voice  that  had  an  edge  of  sudden  anxiety 
in  it.  Then  getting  no  response,  he  went  up,  two  at  a  time. 

Mary  dropped  down,  limp  with  a  sudden  premonition, 
upon  the  gloucester  swing  in  the  veranda.  The  maid  of  all 
work,  who  had  heard  his  call,  came  from  the  kitchen 
just  as  he  was  returning  down  the  stairs.  Mrs.  Wollaston 
had  gone  away,  she  said.  Pete  had  reported  with  the  big 
car  at  eleven  o'clock  and  Paula,  who  apparently  had  been 
waiting  for  him,  had  driven  off  at  once  having  left  word  that 
she  would  not  be  back  for  lunch. 

"All  right,"  John  said  curtly.    "You  may  go." 

He  was  so  white  when  he  rejoined  Mary  in  the  veranda 
that  she  sprang  up  with  an  involuntary  cry  and  would  have 
had  him  lie  down  where  she  had  been  sitting.  But  the  fine 
steely  ring  in  his  voice  stopped  her  short. 

"Have  you  any  idea,"  he  asked,  "where  she  has  gone 


266  MARY  WOLLASTON 

or  what  she  has  gone  to  do?  She  came  down,"  he  went 
on  without  waiting  for  her  answer, — "and  looked  for  me. 
Waited  for  me.  And  thanks  to  that — walk  we  took,  I 
wasn't  here.  Well,  can  you  guess  what  she's  done  ?" 

"It's  only  a  guess,"  Mary  said,  "but  she  may  have  gone 
to  see  Martin  Whitney." 

"Martin  Whitney?"  he  echoed  blankly.  "What  for? 
What  does  she  want  of  him  ?" 

"She  spoke  of  him,"  Mary  said,  "in  connection  with  the 
money,  the  twenty  thousand  dollars  .  .  ." 

He  broke  in  upon  her  again  with  a  mere  blank  frantic 
echo  of  her  words  and  once  more  Mary  steadied  herself  to 
explain. 

"Her  agreement  with  Mr.  Ware  required  her  to  put 
up  twenty  thousand  dollars  in  some  banker's  hands  as  a 
guarantee  that  she  would  not  break  the  contract.  She  men- 
tioned Martin  Whitney  as  the  natural  person  to  hold  it.  So 
I  guessed  that  she  might  have  gone  to  consult  him  about 
it ; — or  even  to  ask  him  to  lend  it  to  her.  As  she  said,  it 
wouldn't  have  to  be  spent." 

"That's  the  essence  of  the  contract  then.  It's  nothing 
without  that.  Until  she  gets  the  money  and  puts  it  up.  Yet 
you  told  me  nothing  of  it  until  this  moment.  If  you  had 
done  so — instead  of  inviting  me  to  go  for  a  walk — and 
giving  her  a  chance  to  get  away  .  .  ." 

He  couldn't  be  allowed  to  go  on.  "Do  you  mean  that 
you  think  I  did  that — for  the  purpose?"  she  asked  steadily. 

He  flushed  and  turned  away.  "No,  of  course  I  don't. 
I'm  half  mad  over  this." 

He  walked  abruptly  into  the  house  and  a  moment  later 
she  heard  him  at  the  telephone.  She  stayed  where  she  was, 
Unable  to  think ;  stunned  rather  than  hurt  over  the  way  he 
had  sprung  upon  her. 

He  seemed  a  little  quieter  when  he  came  out  a  few  min- 


TWO  WOMEN  AND  JOHN  267 

utes  later.  "Whitney  left  half  an  hour  ago  for  Lake 
Geneva,"  he  said.  "So  she's  missed  him  if  that's  where 
she  went.  There's  nothing  to  do  but  wait." 

He  was  very  nervous  however.  Whenever  the  telephone 
rang,  as  it  did  of  course  pretty  often,  he  answered  it  him- 
self, and  each  time  his  disappointment  that  it  was  not  Paula 
asking  for  him,  broke  down  more  or  less  the  calm  he  tried 
to  impose  upon  himself.  He  essayed  what  amends  good 
manners  enabled  him  to  make  to  Mary  for  his  outrageous 
attack  upon  her.  It  went  no  deeper  than  that.  The  dis- 
covery that  Paula  was  gone  and  simultaneously  that  he  need 
not  have  lost  her  obliterated — or  rather  reversed — the  morn- 
ing's mood  completely. 

It  was  after  lunch  that  he  said,  dryly,  "I  upset  your  life 
for  you,  half  a  dozen  years  ago.  Unfairly.  Inexcusably. 
I've  always  been  ashamed  of  it.  But  it  lends  a  sort  of 
poetic  justice  to  this." 

She  made  no  immediate  reply,  but  not  long  afterward 
she  asked  if  she  might  not  go  away  without  waiting  for 
Paula's  return.  "It  would  be  too  difficult,  don't  you  think? 
— for  the  three  of  us,  in  a  small  house  like  this." 

He  agreed  with  manifest  relief.  He  asked  if  it  was  not 
too  late  to  drive  that  afternoon  to  Hickory  Hill,  but  she 
said  she'd  prefer  to  go  by  train  anyhow.  That  was  possible 
she  thought. 

He  did  not  ask,  in  so  many  words,  if  this  was  where  she 
meant  to  go.  There  was  no  other  place  for  her  that  he 
could  think  of. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  SUBSTITUTE 

IT  WAS  a  good  guess  of  Mary's  that  Paula  had  gone  to 
borrow  the  twenty  thousand  dollars  but  it  was  to  Wal- 
lace Hood,  not  to  Martin  Whitney,  that  she  went  for  it ;  and 
thereby  illustrated  once  more  how  much  more  effective 
instinct  is  than  intelligence. 

Martin,  rich  and  generous  as  he  was,  originator  as  he 
was  of  the  edict  that  Paula  must  go  to  work,  would  never 
have  been  stampeded  as  Wallace  was  in  a  talk  that  lasted  less 
than  half  an  hour,  into  producing  securities  to  the  amount 
that  Paula  needed  and  offering  them  up  in  escrow  for  the 
life  of  Maxfield  Ware's  contract. 

Wallace  was  only  moderately  well  off  and  he  was  by 
nature,  cautious.  His  investments  were  always  of  the  most 
conservative  sort.  This  from  habit  as  well  as  nature  be- 
cause his  job — the  only  one  he  had  ever  had — was  that  of 
estate  agent.  But  Paula's  instinct  told  her  that  he  wouldn't 
find  it  possible  to  refuse.  I  think  it  told  her  too,  though  this 
was  a  voice  that  did  not  make  itself  fairly  heard  to  her  con- 
scious ear,  that  he  would  be  made  very  fluttered  and  un- 
happy by  it  whether  he  granted  her  request  or  not. 

What  he  would  hate,  she  perceived,  was  the  sud- 
denness of  the  demand  and  the  irrevocable  committal  to 
those  five  years ;  the  blow  it  was  to  those  domesticities  and 
proprieties  he  loved  so  much.  The  fact  that  he  would  be 
made  sponsor  for  those  unchartered  excursions  to  Mexico, 
to  South  America,  and  so  on,  under  the  direction  of  a  libid- 
inous looking  cosmopolite  like  Maxfield  Ware. 

Why  she  wanted  to  put  Wallace  into  the  flutters  she 
couldn't  have  told.  She  was,  as  I  say,  not  quite  aware  that 

268 


THE  SUBSTITUTE  269 

she  did.  But  he  had  been  running  up  a  score  in  very  minute 
items  that  was  all  of  five  years  old.  The  fact  that  all 
these  items  went  by  the  name  of  services,  helpful  little  acts 
of  kindness,  made  the  irritation  they  caused  her  all  the 
more  acute. 

I  don't  agree  with  Lucile  Wollaston's  diagnosis,  that 
Paula  could  not  abide  Wallace  merely  because  he  refused 
to  lose  his  head  over  her,  but  there  was  a  grain  of  truth  in 
it.  What  she  unconsciously  resented  was  the  fundamental 
unreality  of  his  attitude  to  her.  Actually,  he  did  not  like 
her,  but  the  relation  he  had  selected  as  appropriate  to  the 
first  Mrs.  Wollaston's  successor  was  one  of  innocent  de- 
votion and  he  stuck,  indefatigably,  to  the  pose.  So  the 
chance  to  put  his  serviceability  to  the  proof  in  consternat- 
ing circumstances  like  these,  afforded  her  a  subtle  satis- 
faction. He'd  brought  it  upon  himself,  hadn't  he?  At 
least  it  was  he  and  no  other  who  had  put  Mary  up  to  the 
part  she  had  played. 

None  of  this,  of  course,  came  to  the  surface  at  all  in  the 
scene  between  them.  She  was  gentler  than  was  her  wont 
with  him,  very  appealing,  subdued  nearer  to  his  own  scale 
of  manners  than  he  had  ever  seen  her  before.  But  she  did 
not,  for  a  fact,  allow  him  much  time  to  think. 

He  asked  her,  with  a  touch  of  embarrassment,  whether 
John  was  fully  in  her  confidence  concerning  this  startling 
project,  and  if  she  had  won  his  assent  to  it. 

"He  knows  all  about  it,"  she  said — and  with  no  con- 
sciousness of  a  suppressio  veri  here.  "We  hardly  talked  of 
anything  else  all  last  night.  I  didn't  get  to  sleep  till  four. 
He  doesn't  like  it,  but  then  you  couldn't  expect  he  would. 
For  that  matter  neither  do  I.  Oh,  you  don't  know  how  I 
hate  it!  But  I  think  he  sees  it  has  to  be.  Anyhow,  he 
didn't  try  very  hard  to  keep  me  from  going  on  with  it.-— 
And  Mary,  of  course,  is  perfectly  satisfied." 


270  MARY  WOLLASTON 

Even  his  not  very  alert  ear  caught  something  equivocal 
in  those  last  sentences,  and  he  looked  at  her  sharply. 

"Oh,  I'm  worn  to  ribbons  over  it!"  she  exclaimed,  and 
this  touch  of  apology  served  for  the  tearing  edge  there  had 
been  in  her  voice.  "I  couldn't  let  him  see  how  I  feel  about 
it.  It  would  be  a  sort  of  relief  to  have  it  settled.  That's 
why  I  came  straight  to  you  to-day." 

He  tried,  but  rather  feebly,  to  temporize.  We  mustn't 
let  haste  drive  us  farther  than  we  really  wanted  to  go.  The 
matter  of  drawing  the  formal  contract,  for  instance,  must 
be  attended  with  all  possible  legal  safe-guards,  especially 
when  we  were  dealing  with  a  person  whose  honor  was 
perhaps  dubitable. 

"I  thought  we  might  go  round  to  see  Rodney  Aldrich 
about  it,  now,"  she  said.  "He's  about  the  best  there  is  in 
that  line,  isn't  he?  Why  don't  you  telephone  to  his  office 
and  find  out  if  he's  there." 

This  seemed  as  good  a  straw  as  any  to  clutch  at.  The 
chance  of  catching  as  busy  a  man  as  Aldrich  with  a  leisure 
half  hour  was  very  slim.  The  recording  angel  who  guarded 
his  wicket  gate  would  probably  give  them  an  appointment 
for  some  day  next  week,  and  this  would  leave  time  for  a 
confirmatory  talk  with  John.  But,  unluckily,  Rodney  was 
there  and  would  be  glad  to  see  Mrs.  Wollaston  as  soon  as 
she  could  be  brought  round. 

"Then,  that's  all  right,"  Paula  said  with  a  sigh  of  relief. 
"So  if  you  really  believe  I'll  keep  my  word  and  don't  mind 
putting  up  the  money  for  me,  it's  as  good  as  settled." 

There  was  one  more  question  on  his  tongue.  "Does 
John  know  that  you  have  come  to  me  for  it?"  But  this, 
somehow,  he  could  not  force  himself  to  ask.  Implicitly 
she  had  already  answered  it — hadn't  she  ? 

"Of  course  I  believe  in  you,  in  everything,  my  dear 
OPaula.  And  I'm  very  much — touched,  that  you  should  have 


THE  SUBSTITUTE  271 

come  to  me.  And  my  only  hope  is  that  it  may  turn  out  to 
have  been  altogether  for  the  best." 

And  there  was  that. 

It  was  not  until  late  that  night  that  his  misgivings  as  to 
the  part  Mary  might  have  played  in  this  drama  really 
awoke,  but  when  they  did  he  marveled  that  they  had  not 
occurred  to  him  earlier.  He  recalled  that  Mary  had  prophe- 
sied during  their  talk  at  the  Saddle  and  Cycle  that  Paula 
would  attribute  to  her  the  suggestion — whoever  might  make 
it — that  an  operatic  career  for  John's  wife  was  desirable  and 
necessary  for  financial  reasons.  She  had  said  too,  in  that 
serious  measured  way  of  hers,  "If  Paula  ever  saw  me  com- 
ing between  her  and  father,  whether  it  was  my  doing  or 
not,  she  would  hate  me  with  her  whole  heart." 

Had  that  prediction  been  justified?  There  were  half  a 
dozen  phrases  that  Paula  had  allowed  herself  to  use  this 
afternoon,  which  added  up  to  a  reasonable  certainty  that 
it  was  altogether  justified.  It  was  not  easy  for  him  to  admit 
to  himself  that  he  didn't  like  Paula;  that  he  knew  her  and 
had  long  known  her  for  a  person  incapable  of  following  any 
lead  save  that  of  her  own  primitive  straightforward  desires. 

His  self-communings  reached  down  deeper  into  him 
than  they  had  done  for  many  a  long  year.  He  convicted 
himself,  before  his  vigil  was  over,  of  flagrant  cowardice  in 
having  allowed  Mary  to  undertake  the  burden  of  that  revel- 
ation. What  harm  would  it  have  done  any  one,  even  him- 
self, beyond  an  hour's  discomfort,  to  have  drawn  down 
Paula's  lightnings  on  his  own  head?  Her  enmity,  even 
though  it  were  permanent,  could  not  seriously  have  changed 
the  tenor  of  his  ways. 

But  to  Mary,  such  a  thing  could  easily  be  a  first-class 
disaster.  Could  John  be  relied  upon  to  come  whole-heart- 
edly to  her  defense.  No,  he  could  not.  Indeed — this  was 
the  thought  that  made  Wallace  gasp  as  from  a  dash  of 


272  MARY  WOLLASTON 

cold  water  in  the  face — John's  anger  at  this  interference 
with  his  affairs  and  at  the  innocent  agent  of  it  was  likely 
to  be  as  hot  as  his  wife's.  Momentarily  anyhow.  What  a 
perfectly  horrible  situation  to  have  forced  the  girl  into; — • 
that  fragile  sensitive  young  thing ! 

And  now  above  all  other  times,  when,  for  some  reason 
not  fully  known  to  him,  she  was  finding  her  own  life  an 
almost  impossibly  difficult  thing  to  manage.  He  remem- 
bered the  day  she  had  come  back  from  New  York;  how 
she  had  flushed  and  gone  pale  and  asked  him  in  a  moment 
of  suddenly  tense  emotion  if  he  couldn't  find  her  a  job.  It 
had  been  that  very  night,  hadn't  it  ? — when  Paula  had  given 
that  recital  of  Anthony  March's  songs — that  she  had  dis- 
appeared out  of  the  midst  of  things  and  never  come  back 
during  the  whole  evening.  When  one  considered  her  cour- 
age a  flight  like  that  told  a  good  deal. 

Then  there  had  been  that  something  a  little  short  of  an 
engagement  with  Graham  Stannard,  which  must  have  dis- 
tressed her  horribly; — any  one  with  a  spirit  as  candid  as 
hers  and  with  as  honest  a  hatred  of  all  that  was  equivocal. 
The  family  had  seemed  to  think  that  it  would  all  come  out 
right  in  the  end  somehow,  yet  the  last  time  she  had  talked 
with  him  she  had  said,  cutting  straight  through  the  disguise 
his  thought  had  hidden  itself  behind,  "I  know  I  can't  ever 
marry  Graham." 

And  it  was  a  young  girl  harassed  with  perplexities  like 
these,  whom  he  had  permitted  in  his  stead  to  beard  the  lion- 
ess. Well,  if  there  was  anything  in  the  world,  any  con- 
ceivable thing,  that  he  could  do  to  repair  the  consequences 
of  his  fault,  he  would  do  it.  If  that  lovers'  misunderstand- 
ing with  Graham  could,  after  all,  be  cleared  away  it  would 
be  the  happy,  the  completely  desirable  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem. But  if  it  could  not  ...  A  day-dream  that  it  was 
he  who  stood  in  Graham  Stannard's  shoes,  offering  her 


THE  SUBSTITUTE  273 

harbor  and  rest  and  a  life-long  loyalty,  formed  the  bridge 
over  which  he  finally  fell  asleep. 

She  called  him  to  the  telephone  the  next  morning  while 
he  was  at  breakfast;  just  to  tell  him  she  was  in  town,  she 
said,  and  to  ask  him  if  he  had  heard  anything  from  his 
sister  in  Omaha  as  to  whether  she  wanted  a  nursery  govern- 
ess. He  had  to  admit,  of  course,  that  he  had  not  even  writ- 
ten to  her,  and  felt  guiltier  and  more  miserable  than  ever. 

"Do  write  to-day,  though,  won't  you?"  she  urged.  "And 
give  me  the  best  character  you  can.  Because  I  am  going 
to  get  some  sort  of  job  just  as  soon  as  possible." 

In  reply  to  the  inarticulate  noise  of  protest  he  made  at 
this  she  went  on,  "Our  family  has  simply  exploded.  I  fled 
for  my  life  last  night.  So  you  see  I'm  really  in  earnest 
about  going  to  work  now." 

"I  want  to  come  and  see  you  at  once,"  he  said.  "Where 
are  you  ?" 

"At  home,"  she  answered,  "but  I'm  going  out  this  min- 
ute for  the  day.  If  you'd  like  a  picnic  tea  here  at  half  past 
five,  though,  come  and  I'll  tell  you  what  I've  been  doing." 

He  asked  if  this  meant  that  she  was  staying  all  by 
herself  in  the  Dearborn  Avenue  house  without  even  a  serv- 
ant, and  at  his  lively  horror  over  this  she  laughed  with  an 
amusement  which  sounded  genuine  enough  to  reassure  him 
somewhat.  She  ended  the  conversation  by  telling  him  that 
she  had  left  her  father  with  the  impression  that  she  was 
going  straight  to  Hickory  Hill.  She  was  writing  Aunt 
Lucile  a  note  saying  she  meant  to  stay  in  town  for  a  few 
days.  "But  if  you  get  any  frantic  telephone  calls  in  the 
meantime,  tell  them  I'm  all  right." 

He  wondered  a  good  deal,  as  his  hours  marched  past  in 
their  accustomed  uneventful  manner,  what  she  could  be 
doing  with  hers.  It  was  an  odd  locution  for  her  to  have 
employed  that  she  was  "going  out  for  the  day."  He  couldn't 


274  MARY  WOLLASTON 

square  it  with  any  sort  of  social  activity.  The  thing  that 
kept  plaguing  his  mind  despite  his  impatient  attempts  to 
dismiss  it  as  nonsense,  was  the  possibility  that  she  was 
actually  looking  for  that  job  she'd  talked  about.  Answer- 
ing advertisements ! 

Toward  four,  when  he  had  stopped  trying  to  do  any- 
thing but  wait  for  his  appointment  with  her,  Rush  and 
Graham  came  in,  precipitately,  and  asked  for  a  private  talk 
with  him.  He  took  them  into  his  inner  office,  relieved  a 
little  at  the  arrival  of  reenforcements  but  disappointed  too. 

"If  you're  anxious  about  Mary,"  he  began  by  saying, 
"I  can  assure  you  that  she  is  all  right.  She's  at  the  Dear- 
born Avenue  house,  or  was  last  night  and  will  be  again 
later  this  afternon.  I  talked  to  her  on  the  phone  this  morn- 
ing." 

"Thank  God  I"  said  Rush. 

Graham  dropped  into  a  chair  with  a  gesture  of  relief 
even  more  expressive. 

Rush  explained  the  cause  of  their  alarm.  Old  Pete 
had  driven  in  to  Hickory  Hill  around  two  o'clock  with  a 
letter,  addressed  to  Mary,  from  Paula,  and  on  being  asked 
to  explain  offered  the  disquieting  information  that  she  had 
left  Ravinia  for  the  farm,  the  afternoon  before.  They 
had  driven  straight  to  town  and  to  Wallace  as  the  likeliest 
source  of  information. 

In  the  emotional  back-lash  from  his  profound  disquiet 
about  his  sister,  suddenly  reassured  that  there  was  nothing 
— well,  tragic  to  be  apprehended,  Rush  allowed  himself  an 
outburst  of  brotherly  indignation.  He'd  like  to  know  what 
the  devil  Mary  meant  by  giving  them  a  fright  like  that. 
Why  hadn't  she  telephoned  last  night  ?  Nothing  was  easier 
than  that.  Or,  more  to  the  point  still,  why  hadn't  she  come 
straight  out  to  the  farm  as  she  had  told  her  father  she 
meant  to  do,  instead  of  spending  the  night  in  town  ? 


THE  SUBSTITUTE  275 

Wallace  would  have  let  him  go  on,  since  it  gave  him  a 
little  time  he  wanted  for  deciding  what  line  to  take.  But 
Graham,  it  seemed,  couldn't  stand  it. 

"Shut  up,  Rush!"  he  commanded.  (You  are  to  re- 
member that  he  was  three  years  his  partner's  senior.) 
"Mary  never  did  an — inconsiderate  thing  in  her  life.  If 
she  seems  to  have  forgotten  about  us,  you  can  be  dead  sure 
there's  a  reason." 

"I  agree  with  Stannard,"  Wallace  put  in,  "that  she 
wants  to  be  dealt  with — gently.  She  must  have  been  having 
a  rather  rotten  time." 

He  hadn't  yet  made  up  his  mind  how  far  to  take  them 
into  his  confidence  as  to  what  he  knew  and  guessed,  but 
Rush  made  an  end  of  his  hesitation. 

"Tell  us,  for  heaven's  sake,  what  it's  all  about. — Oh, 
you  needn't  mind  Graham.  He's  as  much  in  it  as  any  of 
us.  I  suppose  you  know  how  he  stands." 

Wallace  was  conscious  of  an  acute  wish  that  they  had 
not  turned  up  until  he'd  had  a  chance  to  see  Mary,  but  some- 
how he  felt  he  couldn't  go  behind  an  assurance  like  that. 
So  he  told  them  what  he  had  pieced  together. 

Rush  grunted  and  blushed  and  said  he'd  be  damned, 
but  it  was  not  a  theme — this  contention  between  his 
father  and  his  stepmother — that  he  could  dwell  upon.  He 
got  hold  at  last  of  something  that  he  could  be  articulate 
about,  and  demanded  to  know  why,  in  these  circumstances, 
Mary  hadn't  come  straight  to  them  at  Hickory  Hill  instead 
of  camping  out,  for  the  night,  all  by  herself  in  the  Dear- 
born Avenue  house. 

"She  has  an  idea  she  must  find  a  job  for  herself,"  Wal- 
lace said,  feeling  awkwardly  guilty  as  if  he  had  betrayed 
her ;  but  the  way  Rush  leaped  upon  him,  demanding  in  one 
breath  what  the  deuce  he  meant  and  what  sort  of  job  he 
was  talking  about,  made  it  impossible  to  pull  up. 


276  MARY  WOLLASTON 

He  recounted  the  request  Mary  had  made  of  him,  con- 
cerning his  sister  in  Omaha,  and,  last  of  all,  stated  his  own 
misgiving — nothing  but  the  merest  guess  of  course — that 
she  had  been  putting  in  this  day  answering  advertisements. 
"She  said  she'd  give  me  a  picnic  tea  at  five-thirty  and  tell 
me  what  she'd  been  doing." 

"Well,  it'll  be  no  picnic  for  her,"  Rush  exploded  angrily. 
"I'll  see  her  at  five-thirty  myself.  She  must  be  plumb  out 
of  her  head  if  she  thinks  she'll  be  allowed  to  do  a  thing 
like  that." 

Once  more,  before  Wallace  could  speak,  it  was  Graham 
who  intervened.  "I  want  you  to  leave  this  to  me,"  he  said 
gravely.  "I  don't  know  whether  I  can  settle  it  or  not,  but 
I'd  like  to  try."  He  turned  to  Wallace.  "Would  you  mind, 
sir,  letting  me  go  to  tea  with  her  at  half  past  five  in  your 
place?" 

It  is  possible  that,  but  for  Wallace's  day-dream  of  him- 
self offering  Mary  the  shelter  and  the  care  she  so  ob- 
viously needed,  he  might  have  persisted  in  seeing  her 
first  and  assuring  her  that  he  was  to  be  regarded  as  an  ally 
whatever  she  decided  to  do.  Her  voice  as  she  had  said,  "I 
know  I  can  never  marry  Graham"  echoed  forlornly  in  his 
mind's  ear.  But  a  doubt  faint  and  vague  as  it  was,  of  his 
own  disinterestedness  held  him  back.  Graham  was  young; 
he  was  in  love  with  her.  That  gave  him  right  of  way, 
didn't  it? 

So  he  assented.  It  was  agreed  that  Rush  should  dine 
with  Wallace  at  his  apartment.  Graham,  if  he  had  any 
news  for  them  should  communicate  it  by  telephone.  In- 
stantly! 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE    FUNDAMENTAL    DIFFERENCE 

THE  instinct  to  conceal  certain  moods  of  depression  and 
distress  together  with  the  histrionic  power  to  make  the 
concealment  possible  may  be  a  serious  peril  to  a  woman  of 
Mary  Wollaston's  temperament.  She  had  managed  at  the 
telephone  that  morning  to  deceive  Wallace  pretty  com- 
pletely. Even  her  laugh  had  failed  to  give  her  away. 

She  was  altogether  too  near  for  safety  to  the  point  of 
exhaustion.  She  had  endured  her  second  night  without 
sleep.  She  had  not  really  eaten  an  adequate  meal  since  her 
lunch  in  town  the  day  Paula  had  engineered  her  out  of 
the  way  for  that  talk  with  Maxfield  Ware. 

There  was  nothing  morbid  in  her  resolution  to  find,  at 
the  earliest  possible  moment,  some  way  of  making  herself 
independent  of  her  father's  support.  Having  pointed  out 
Paula's  duty  as  a  bread  winner  she  could  not  neglect  her 
own,  however  dreary  the  method  might  be,  or  humble  the 
results.  In  any  mood,  of  course,  the  setting  out  in  search 
of  employment  would  have  been  painful  and  little  short  of 
terrifying1  to  one  brought  up  the  way  Mary  had  been. 

A  night's  sleep  though  and  a  proper  breakfast  would 
have  kept  the  thing  from  being  a  nightmare.  As  it  was, 
she  felt,  setting  out  with  her  clipping  from  the  help- 
wanted  columns  of  a  morning  paper,  a  good  deal  like  the 
sole  survivor  of  some  shipwreck,  washed  up  upon  an 
unknown  coast,  venturing  inland  to  discover  whether  the 
inhabitants  were  cannibals.  Even  the  constellations  in  her 
sky  were  strange. 

Where,  then,  was  Anthony  March  ?  Nowhere  above  her 
horizon,  to-day  at  all  events.  The  memory  of  him  had  been 

277 


278  MARY  WOLLASTON 

with  her  much  of  the  two  last  sleepless  nights.  She  had 
told  over  the  tale  of  her  moments  with  him  again  and  again. 
(Did  any  one,  she  might  have  wondered,  ever  love  as  deeply 
with  so  small  a  treasury  of  golden  hours  for  memory  to 
draw  upon?)  But  she  could  not,  somehow,  relate  him  at 
all  to  her  present  or  her  future.  Her  love  for  him  was  an 
out-going  rather  than  an  in-coming  thing.  At  least,  her 
thoughts  had  put  the  emphasis  upon  that  side  of  it;  upon 
the  longing  to  comfort  and  protect  him,  to  be  the  satisfac- 
tion to  all  his  wants.  Not — passionately  not — to  cling 
heavily  about  his  neck,  drag  at  his  feet,  steal  his  wayfarer's 
liberty, — no,  not  the  smallest  moment  of  it!  This  present 
helplessness  of  hers  then,  which  heightened  her  need  for 
him,  served  also  to  bolt  the  doors  of  her  thoughts  against 
him. 

Her  recollection  of  the  next  few  hours,  though  it  con- 
tained some  vignettes  so  sharp  and  deeply  bitten  in  as  to 
be,  she  fancied,  ineffaceable,  was  in  the  main  confused.  She 
must  have  called  upon  ten  or  a  dozen  advertisers  in  various 
suburban  districts  of  the  city  (she  avoided  addresses  that 
were  too  near  home  and  names  where  she  suspected  hers 
might  be  known).  Her  composite  impression  was  of  flat 
thin  voices  which  she  could  imagine  in  excitement  becoming 
shrill;  of  curious  appraising  stares;  of  a  vast  amount  of 
garrulous  irrelevancy;  of  a  note  of  injury  that  one  who 
could  profess  so  little  equipment  beyond  good  will  should 
so  disappoint  the  expectation  her  first  appearance  had 
aroused.  The  background  was  a  room — it  seemed  to  have 
been  in  every  case  the  same — expensively  overfurnished, 
inexpressive,  ill-fitting  its  uses,  like  a  badly  chosen  ready- 
made  coat.  The  day  was  not  without  its  humors,  or  what 
would  have  been  humors  if  her  spirit  could  have  rebounded 
to  them.  Chiefly,  the  violent  antagonism  she  found  aroused 
in  two  or  three  cases  by  the  color  of  her  hair. 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  DIFFERENCE         279 

The  residuum  of  her  pilgrimages  was  three  addresses 
where  she  might  call  about  the  middle  of  next  week,  in 
person  or  by  telephone,  to  learn  the  advertiser's  decision. 
Well  it  would  convince  Wallace  Hood  that  she  was  in 
earnest.  That  was  something. 

Wallace's  coming  to  tea  became,  as  the  day  wore  on, 
more  and  more  something  to  look  forward  to.  All  the 
things  about  him  which  in  more  resilient  hours  she  had 
found  irritating  or  absurd,  his  neutrality,  his  appropriate- 
ness, his  steady  unimaginative  way  of  going  always  one  step 
at  a  time,  seemed  now  precisely  his  greatest  merits.  The 
thought  of  tea  in  his  company  even  aroused  a  faint  appe- 
tite for  food  in  her  and  lent  zest  to  her  preparations  for  it. 
When  she  stopped  at  the  neighborhood  caterer's  shop  for 
supplies  she  bought  some  tea  cakes  in  addition  to  the  sand- 
wiches she  had  ordered  in  the  morning.  She  had  managed 
to  get  home  in  good  enough  season  to  restore  the  drawing- 
room  somewhat  to  its  inhabited  appearance,  to  set  out  her 
tea  table,  put  on  her  kettle,  and  then  go  up-stairs  and  change 
her  dress  for  something  that  was  not  wilted  by  the  day's 
unusual  heat.  She  was  ready  then  to  present  before  Wal- 
lace an  ensemble  which  should  match  pretty  well  her  tone  at 
the  telephone  this  morning. 

But  when  she  answered  the  ring  she  supposed  was  his 
and  flinging  open  the  door  saw  Graham  Stannard  there 
instead,  she  got  a  jarring  shock  which  her  overstrung 
nerves  were  in  no  condition  to  endure. 

"I  persuaded  Mr.  Hood  to  let  me  come  to  tea  in  his 
place,"  he  said.  "It  was  rather  cheeky  of  me  to  ask  him, 
I'm  afraid.  I  hope  you  will  forgive  me." 

The  arrest  of  all  her  processes  of  thought  at  sight  of 
him  lasted  only  the  barest  instant.  Then  her  mind  flashed 
backward  through  a  surmise  which  embraced  the  whole 
series  of  events.  An  alarm  at  Hickory  Hill  over  her  failure 


280  MARY  WOLLASTON 

to  arrive  (which  somehow  they  had  been  led  to  expect),  a 
dash  by  Graham  (Rush  not  available,  perhaps),  into  town 
for  news.  To  Wallace  Hood,  of  course.  And  Wallace  had 
betrayed  her.  In  the  interest  of  romantic  sentiment.  The 
happy  ending  given  its  chance.  A  rich  young  adoring  hus- 
band instead  of  a  job  as  nursery  governess  in  Omaha! 

It  took  no  longer  for  all  that  to  go  through  her  mind 
than  Graham  needed  for  his  little  explanatory  speech  on 
the  door-step.  There  he  stood  waiting  for  her  answer.  The 
only  choice  she  had  was  between  shutting  the  door  in  his 
face  without  a  word,  or  graciously  inviting  him  to  come 
in  and  propose  to  her — for  the  last  time,  at  all  events.  It 
was  not,  of  course,  a  choice  at  all. 

"I'm  afraid  it's  a  terribly  hot  day  for  tea,"  she  said,  mov- 
ing back  from  the  doorway  to  make  room  for  him  to  come 
in.  "Wallace  likes  it,  though.  I  might  make  you  some- 
thing cold  if  only  I  had  ice,  but  of  course  there  isn't  any 
in  the  house.  It's  nice  and  cool,  though,  isn't  it;  from 
having  been  shut  up  so  long  ?" 

Anything, — any  frantic  thing  that  could  be  spun  into 
words  to  cover  the  fact  that  she  had  no  welcome  for  him 
at  all,  not  even  the  most  wan  little  beam  of  friendly  tender- 
ness. She  had  seen  the  hurt  look  come  into  his  eyes, 
incipient  panic  at  the  flash  of  anger  which  had  not  been 
meant  for  him.  She  must  float  him  inside,  somehow,  and 
anchor  him  to  the  tea  table.  There  she  could  get  herself 
together  and  deal  with  him — decently. 

He  came  along,  tractably  enough,  sat  in  the  chair  that 
was  to  have  been  Wallace's,  and  talked  for  a  while  of  the 
tea,  and  how  hot  it  was  this  afternoon,  and  how  beautifully 
cool  in  here.  It  was  hot,  too,  out  at  Hickory  Hill  but  one 
thought  little  of  it.  The  air  was  drier  for  one  thing.  He 
and  Rush  had  commented  on  the  difference  as  they  drove 
in  to-day. 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  DIFFERENCE          281 

"Oh,  Rush  came  in  with  you,  did  he?"  she  observed. 

He  flushed  and  stammered  over  the  admission  and  it 
was  easy  to  guess  why.  The  fact  that  her  brother,  as  well 
as  Wallace,  was  lurking  in  the  background  somewhere 
waiting  for  results  gave  an  official  cast  to  his  call  that  was 
rather — asinine.  She  came  to  the  rescue. 

"I  suppose  he  and  Wallace  had  something  they  wanted 
to  talk  about,"  she  commented  easily,  and  he  made  haste 
to  assent. 

She  steadied  herself  with  a  breath.  "Did  Wallace  tell 
you,"  she  asked,  "about  our  explosion  at  Ravinia  over 
Paula's  new  contract?  And  how  furious  both  father  and 
Paula  are  with  me  about  it  ?  And  how  I'm  out  looking  for 
a  job?  He  didn't  say  anything  about  his  sister,  did  he; 
whether  he'd  written  to  her  to-day  or  not  ?" 

"Not  whether  he'd  written.  But  he  told  us  the  rest. 
How  you  wanted  to  go  to  work.  As  a  nursery  governess." 

He  paused  there  but  she  did  not  break  in  upon  it.  She 
had  given  him  all  the  lead  he  needed.  With  the  deliberate 
care  that  a  suddenly  tremulous  hand  made  necessary  he  put 
down  his  teacup  and  spoke  as  if  addressing  it. 

"I  think  you're  the  bravest — most  wonderful  person  in 
the  world.  Of  course,  I've  known  that  always.  Not  just 
since  I  came  back  last  spring.  But  this,  that  Mr.  Hood 
told  us  this  afternoon,  somehow — caps  the  climax.  I  can't 
tell  you  how  it — got  me,  to  think  of  your  being  ready  to 
do— a  thing  like  that." 

The  last  thing  she  would  have  done  voluntarily  was  to 
put  any  obstacles  in  his  way.  Her  program,  on  the  con- 
trary was  to  help  him  along  all  she  could  to  his  declaration, 
make  a  refusal  that  should  be  as  gentle  as  was  consistent 
with  complete  finality,  and  then  get  rid  of  him  before  any- 
thing regrettably — messy  ensued.  But  to  have  her  courage 
rhapsodized  over  like  this  was  a  thing  she  could  not  endure. 


282  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"It's  nothing,"  she  said  rather  dryly,  "beyond  what  most 
girls  do  nowadays  as  a  matter  of  course.  I'm  being  rather 
cowardly  about  it,  I  think — on  account  of  some  silly  ideas 
I've  been  more  or  less  brought  up  with  perhaps,  but  .  .  ." 

"What  if  they  do  ?"  he  broke  in ;  "thousands  of  them  at 
the  stores  and  in  the  offices.  It's  bad  enough  for  them — 
for  any  sort  of  woman.  But  it's  different  with  you.  It's 
horrible.  You  aren't  like  them." 

She  tried  to  check  herself  but  couldn't.  "What's  the 
difference  ?  I'm  healthy  and  half-educated  and  fairly  young. 
I  have  the  same  sort,  pretty  much,  of  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings. I  don't  believe  I  like  being  clean  and  warm  and  well- 
fed  and  amused  and  admired  any  better  than  the  average 
girl  does.  I  ought  to  have  found  a  job  months  ago,  instead 
of  letting  Rush  bring  me  home  from  New  York.  Or  else 
gone  to  work  when  I  came  home.  But  every  one  was  so 
horrified  .  .  ." 

"They  were  right  to  be,"  he  interrupted.  "It  is  a  hor- 
rible idea.  Because  you  aren't  like  the  others.  You  haven't 
the  same  sort  of  thoughts  and  feelings.  A  person  doesn't 
have  to  be  in  love  with  you  to  see  that.  Your  father  and 
Rush  and  Mr.  Hood  all  see  it.  And  as  for  me — well,  I 
couldn't  endure  it,  that's  all.  Oh,  I  know,  you  can  act  like 
anybody  else ;  laugh  and  dance  and  talk  nonsense  and  make 
a  person  forget  sometimes.  But  the  other  thing  is  there  all 
the  while — shining  through — oh,  it  can't  be  talked  about ! — • 
like  a  light.  Of — of  something  a  decent  man  wants  to  be 
guided  by,  whatever  he  does.  And  for  you  to  go  out  into 
the  world  with  that,  where  there  can't  be  any  protection  at 
all  ...  I  can't  stand  it,  Mary.  That's  why  I  came 
to-day  instead  of  Mr.  Hood." 

She  went  very  white  during  that  speech  and  tears  came 
up  into  her  eyes.  Tears  of  helpless  exasperation.  It  was 
such  a  cruelly  inhuman  thing  to  impose  an  ideal  like  that 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  DIFFERENCE          283 

upon  a  woman.  It  was  so  smug,  so  utterly  satisfactory  to 
all  romantic  sentimentalists.  Wallace  would  approve  every 
word  of  it.  Wallace  had  sent  him  to  say  just  this; — was 
waiting  now  to  be  told  the  good  news  of  his  success. 

The  fact  is  worth  recalling,  perhaps,  that  away  back  in 
her  childhood  Wallace  had  sometimes  reduced  her  to  much 
this  sort  of  frantic  exasperation  by  his  impregnable  assump- 
tion that  she  was  the  white-souled  little  angel  she  looked. 
Sitting  here  in  this  very  room  he  had  goaded  her  into  com- 
mitting freakish  misdemeanors. 

She  was  resisting  now  an  impulse  of  much  the  same 
sort,  though  the  parallel  did  not,  of  course,  occur  to  her. 
It  was  just  a  sort  of  inexplicable  panic  which  she  was  rein- 
ing in  with  all  her  might  by  telling  herself  how  fond  she 
really  was  of  Graham  and  how  terrible  a  thing  it  would  be 
if  she  hurt  him  unnecessarily.  She  dared  not  attempt  to 
speak  so  she  merely  waited.  She  was  sitting  relaxed,  her 
head  lowered,  her  chin  supported  by  one  hand.  This  still- 
ness and  relaxation  she  always  resorted  to  in  making  any 
supreme  demand  upon  her  self-control. 

He  looked  at  her  rather  helplessly  once  or  twice  during 
the  silence.  Then  arose  and  moved  about  restlessly. 

"I  know  you  don't  love  me.  I've  gone  on  hoping  you 
could  after  I  suppose  I  might  have  seen  it  wasn't  possible. 
You've  tried  to  and  you  can't.  I  don't  know  if  one  as  white 
as  you  could  love  any  man — that  way.  Well,  I'm  not  going 
to  ask  any  more  for  that.  I  want  to  ask,  instead,  that  we 
be  friends.  I  haven't  spoiled  the  possibility  of  that,  have  I  ?" 

She  was  taken  utterly  by  surprise.  It  didn't  seem  pos- 
sible that  she  had  even  heard  aright  and  the  face  he  turned 
to,  as  he  asked  that  last  question,  was  of  one  pitiably  be- 
wildered, yet  lighted  too  by  a  gleam  of  gratitude. 

"You  really  mean  that,  Graham?"  she  asked  in  a  very 
ragged  voice.  "Is  that  what  you  came  to-day  to  tell  me?" 


284  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"I  mean  it  altogether,"  he  said  earnestly.  "I  mean  it 
without  any — reservations  at  all.  You  must  believe  that 
because  it's  the — basis  for  everything  else." 

She  repeated  "everything  else?"  in  clear  interrogation; 
then  dropped  back  rather  suddenly  into  her  former  attitude. 
Everything  else!  What  else  was  there  to  friendship  but 
itself? 

He  turned  back  to  the  window.  "I've  come  to  ask  you 
to  marry  me,  Mary,  just  the  same.  I  couldn't  be  any  good 
as  a  friend,  couldn't  take  care  of  you  and  try  to  make  you 
happy,  unless  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  I  was  your  husband. 
But  I  wouldn't  ask, — I  promise  you  I  wouldn't  ask  anything, 
— anything  at  all.  You  do  understand,  don't  you?  You'd 
be  just  as — sacred  to  me  .  .  ." 

Then  he  cried  out  in  consternation  at  the  sight  of  her, 
"Mary!  What  is  it?" 

The  tension  had  become  too  great,  that  w&s  all.  Her 
self-control,  slackened  by  the  momentarily  held  belief  that 
it  was  not  needed,  had  snapped. 

"I  understand  well  enough,"  she  said.  "You  would  say 
good  night  at  my  bedroom  door  and  good  morning  at  the 
breakfast  table.  I've  read  of  arrangements  like  that  in 
rather  nasty-minded  novels,  but  I  didn't  suppose  they  existed 
anywhere  else.  I  can't  think  of  an  existence  more  degrad- 
ingly  sensual  than  that ; — to  go  on  for  days  and  months  and 
years  being  'sacred'  to  a  man;  never  satisfying  the  desires 
your  nearness  tortured  him  with — to  say  nothing  of  what 
you  did  with  your  own ! 

"But  that  such  a  thing  should  be  offered  to  me  because 
I'm  too  good  to  love  a  man  honestly  .  .  .  You  see,  I'm 
none  of  the  things  you  think  I  am,  Graham.  Nor  that  you 
want  me  to  be.  Not  white,  not  innocent.  Not  a  'good' 
woman  even,  let  alone  an  angel.  That's  what  makes  i*  <o 
— preposterous." 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  DIFFERENCE         285 

He  had  been  staring  at  her,  speechless,  horrified.  But 
at  this  it  was  as  if  he  understood.  "I  ought  not  to  have 
worried  you  to-day,"  he  said,  suddenly  gentle.  "I  know  how 
terribly  overwrought  you  are.  I  meant — I  only  meant  to 
make  things  easier.  I'm  going  away  now.  I'll  send  Rush 
to  you.  He'll  come  at  once.  Do  you  mind  being  alone 
till  then?" 

She  answered  slowly  and  with  an  appearance  of  patient 
reasonableness,  "It's  not  that.  It's  not  what  Rush  calls  shell- 
shock.  There  is  many  a  shabby  little  experimental  flirt 
who  has  managed  to  keep  intact  an — innocence  which  I 
don't  possess.  That  is  the  simple — physiological  truth." 

Then,  after  a  silence,  with  a  gasp,  "I'm  not  mad.  But 
I  think  I  shall  be  if  you  go  on  looking  at  me  like  that. 
Won't  you  please  go?" 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE  TERROR 

GRAHAM  STANNARD  made  his  well-meant  but  dis- 
astrous proposal  to  Mary  at  half  past  five  or  so  on  a 
Friday  afternoon.  It  was  a  little  more  than  twenty-four 
hours  later,  just  after  dark  on  Saturday  evening,  that  she 
came  in,  unheralded,  more  incredibly  like  a  vision  than  ever, 
upon  Anthony  March  in  his  secret  lair  above  the  grocery. 

He  was  sitting  at  his  work-table  scoring  a  passage  in 
the  third  act  of  The  Dumb  Princess  for  the  wood-wind  choir 
when  her  knock,  faint  as  it  was,  breaking  in  upon  the  rhythm 
of  his  theme,  caused  his  pen  to  leap  away  from  the  paper 
and  his  heart  to  skip  a  beat.  But  had  it  actually  been  a 
knock  upon  his  door?  Such  an  event  was  unlikely  enough. 

He  uttered  a  tentative  and  rather  incredulous  "Come  in" 
as  one  just  awakened  speaks,  humoring  the  illusion  of  a 
dream. 

But  the  door  opened  and  the  Dumb  Princess  stood  there, 
pallid,  wistful,  just  as  she  had  looked  before  her  true  lover 
climbed  the  precarious  ivy  to  her  tower  and  tore  away  the 
spell  that  veiled  her. 

March  sat  debating  with  himself,— or  so  it  seemed 
to  him  afterward ;  it  was  a  matter  of  mere  seconds,  of  course, 
— why,  since  she  was  a  vision,  did  she  not  look  as  she  had 
on  one  of  the  occasions  when  he  had  seen  her.  The  night 
of  the  Whitman  songs;  the  blazing  afternoon  in  the  hay 
field. 

She  was  different  to-night,  and  very  clearly  defined,  in  a 
plain  little  frock  of  dark  blue — yet  not  quite  what  one  ordi- 
narily meant  by  dark  blue — cut  out  in  an  unsoftened  square 
around  the  neck,  and  a  small  hat  of  straw,  the  color  of  the 

286 


THE  TERROR  287 

warmer  sort  of  bronze.  These  austerities  of  garb,  dissociated 
utterly  with  all  his  memories,  gave  her  a  poignancy  that  was 
almost  unbearable.  Why  had  the  vision  of  her  come  to  him 
like  that? 

She  smiled  then  and  spoke.  "It  is  really  I.  I've  come 
with  a  message  for  you." 

Until  she  spoke  he  could  do  nothing  but  stare  as  one 
would  at  an  hallucinatory  vision ;  but  her  voice,  the  first  ar- 
ticulate syllable  of  it,  brought  him  to  his  feet  and  drew  him 
across  the  room  to  where  she  stood.  He  was  almost  suffo- 
cated by  a  sudden  convulsion  of  the  heart,  half  exultation, 
half  terror.  The  exultation  was  accountable  enough.  The 
high  Gods  had  given  him  another  chance.  Why  he  should 
be  terrified  he  did  not  at  the  time  know,  but  he  was — from 
that  very  first  moment. 

He  came  to  her  slowly,  not  knowing  what  he  was  to  do 
or  say.  All  his  mental  powers  were  for  the  moment  quite 
in  abeyance.  But  when  he  got  within  hand's  reach  of  her 
it  was  given  to  him  to  take  both  of  hers  and  stoop  and  kiss 
them.  He'd  have  knelt  to  her  had  his  knees  ever  been  habit- 
uated to  prayer.  Then  he  led  her  to  his  big  hollow-backed 
easy  chair  which  stood  in  the  dormer  where  the  breeze  came 
in,  changed  its  position  a  little  and  waited  until,  with  a 
faintly  audible  sigh,  she  had  let  herself  sink  into  it. 

How  tired  she  was !  He  had  become  aware  of  that  the 
moment  he  touched  her  hands.  Whatever  her  experience 
during  the  last  days  or  weeks  had  been,  it  had  brought  her 
to  the  end  of  her  powers. 

He  felt  another  pang  of  that  unaccountable  terror  as  he 
turned  away,  and  he  put  up  an  unaddressed  prayer  for 
spiritual  guidance.  It  was  a  new  humility  for  him.  He 
moved  his  own  chair  a  little  nearer,  but  not  close,  and 
seated  himself. 

"I  can  conceive  of  no  message," — they  were  the  first 


288  MARY  WOLLASTON 

words  he  had  spoken,  and  his  voice  was  not  easily  manage- 
able,— "no  message  that  would  be  more  than  nothing  com- 
pared with  the  fact  that  you  have  come."  Rising  again,  he 
went  on,  "Won't  you  let  me  take  your  hat  ?  Then  the  back 
of  that  chair  won't  be  in  the  way." 

It  was  certainly  a  point  in  his  favor  that  she  took  it  off 
and  gave  it  to  him  without  demur.  That  meant  that  there 
would  be  time;  yet  her  very  docility  frightened  him.  She 
seemed  quite  relaxed  now  that  her  head  could  lie  back 
against  the  leather  cushion,  and  her  gaze  traveled  about  the 
dingy  littered  room  with  a  kind  of  tender  inquisitiveness  as 
if  she  were  memorizing  its  contents. 

He  gazed  at  her  until  a  gush  of  tears  blinded  his  eyes 
and  he  turned,  blinking  them  away,  to  the  untidy  quires  of 
score  paper  which  he  had  tried  to  choose  instead.  It  could 
not  be  that  it  was  too  late  to  alter  that  choice.  The  terror 
for  a  moment,  became  articulate.  She  believed  that  it  was 
too  late.  That  was  why  she  had  come. 

She  spoke  reflectively.  "It  would  be  called  an  accident, 
I  suppose,  that  I  came.  I  wrote  to  you  but  there  was  more 
to  the  message  than  would  go  easily  in  a  note  so  I  took  it 
myself  to  your  house.  There  was  just  a  chance,  I  thought, 
that  I'd  find  you  there.  I  didn't  find  you,  but  I  found  Miss 
MacArthur.  That  was  the  only  thing  about  it  that  could  be 
called  accidental.  Your  mother  and  sister  were  worried 
about  you.  They  said  it  had  been  much  longer  than  such 
periods  usually  were  since  they  had  heard  from  you.  So  I 
left  my  note  and  was  coming  away.  Miss  MacArthur  said 
she  would  come  with  me  and  offered  to  drive  me  back  to 
town.  When  we  got  into  her  car  she  said  she  thought  she 
knew  where  you  were  and  would  take  me  to  you.  SKe 
did  not  say  anything  more  nor  ask  any  questions  until  she 
had  stopped  outside  here  at  the  curb,  when  she  looked  up 
and  saw  the  lighted  windows  and  said  you  were  surely  here. 


THE  TERROR  289 

Then  she  pointed  out  the  place  in  the  dark  where  the  stairs 
were  and  told  me  how  to  find  your  door.  She  waited, 
though,  to  make  sure  before  she  drove  away.  I  heard  her 
go." 

He  had  no  word  to  say  in  the  little  pause  she  made  there. 
He  felt  the  pulse  beating  in  his  temples  and  clutched  with 
tremulous  hands  the  wooden  arms  of  his  chair.  Until  she 
had  mentioned  Jennie  MacArthur's  name  it  had  not  occurred 
to  him  to  wonder  how  she  had  been  enabled  to  come  to  him. 
It  could  only  have  been  through  Jennie,  of  course.  Jennie 
was  the  only  person  who  knew.  But  why  had  Jennie  dis- 
closed his  secret  (her  own  at  the  same  time,  he  was  sure; 
she  never  would  have  expected  Mary's  clear  eyes  even  to 
try  to  evade  the  unescapable  inference) — why  had  she  re- 
vealed to  Mary,  whom  she  had  never  seen  before,  a  fact 
which  she  had  guarded  with  so  impregnable  a  loyalty  all 
these  many  years  ? 

The  only  possible  answer  was  that  Jennie  had  divined, 
under  the  girl's  well-bred  poise,  the  desperation  which  was 
now  terrifying  him.  It  was  no  nightmare  then  of  his  own 
overwrought  imagination.  Jennie  had  perceived  the  emer- 
gency— the  actual  life-or-death  emergency — and  with  cour- 
ageous inspiration  had  done,  unhesitatingly,  the  one  thing 
that  could  possibly  meet  the  case.  She  had  given  him  his 
chance.  Jennie ! 

He  arrived  at  that  terminus  just  as  Mary  finished  speak- 
ing. In  the  pause  that  followed  she  did  not  at  first  look  at 
him.  Her  gaze  had  come  to  rest  upon  that  abortive  musical 
typewriter  of  his.  Not  quite  in  focus  upon  it,  but  as  if  in 
some  corner  of  her  mind  she  was  wondering  what  it  might 
be.  But  as  the  pause  spun  itself  out,  her  glance,  seeking  his 
face,  moved  q-  ;ckly  enough  to  catch  the  look  of  consterna- 
tion that  it  wore.  She  read  it — misread  it  luckily — and  her 
own  lighted  amazingly  with  a  beam  of  pure  amusement. 


290  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"I  suppose  it  is  rather  overwhelming,"  she  said ;  "a  con- 
junction like  that.  I  mean,  that  it  should  have  been  she  who 
brought  me  here.  But  really,  unless  one  accepts  all  the  tradi- 
tional motives  and  explanations  that  one  finds  in  books,  it 
shouldn't  be  surprising  that  she  should  undertake  a  friendly 
service  for  some  one  else  she  saw  was  fond  of  you,  too.  Not 
when  one  considers  the  wonderful  person  she  is." 

If  his  sheer  adoration  of  her  were  enough  to  save  her 
then  she  was  safe,  whatever  the  peril.  But  he  doubted  if 
it  would  be  enough. 

"Jennie  and  I  were  lovers  once,"  he  said.  "But  that  came 
to  an  end  for  both  of  us  a  good  while  ago.  Two  or  three 
years.  And  the  last  time  she  came  to  this  room — one  day 
in  April  it  was — I  told  her  about  you  and  about  The  Dumb 
Princess."  He  laid  his  hand  upon  the  stack  of  manuscript. 
"This.  I  had  come  home  from  that  night  at  your  father's 
house  when  you  and  I  heard  that  song  together,  with  my 
head  full  of  it.  I  went  nearly  mad  fighting  it  out  of  my  head 
while  I  tried  to  make  over  that  other  opera  for  Paula." 

"The  Dumb  Princess    .     .     .?" 

He  nodded.  "You  see  you  hardly  spo£e  that  night,  only 
at  the  end  to  say  we  mustn't  talk.  So  I  came  away  thinking 
of  some  one  under  a  spell.  A  princess,  the  fairy  sort  of 
princess  who  could  not  speak  until  her  true  lover  came  to 
her.  But  instead  of  that  I  tried  to  go  on  working  at  that 
Belgian  horror  and  stuck  at  it  until  it  was  unendurable. 
And  then,  when  I  came  to  the  house  to  tell  Paula  so,  it 
was  you  who  came  to  me  again,  the  first  time  since  that 
night." 

There  had  come  a  faintly  visible  color  into  her  cheeks 
and  once  more  she  smiled,  reflectively.  "That's  what  you 
meant  then,"  she  mused.  "I  couldn't  make  it  out.  You  said 
just  before  you  went  went  away,  'That's  why  it  was  so  in- 
credible when  you  came  down  the  stairs  instead.' " 


THE  TERROR  291 

She  had  remembered  that ! 

"I  ran  away,"  he  confessed,  "the  moment  I  had  said  it, 
for  fear  of  betraying  myself.  And  I  went  to  work  on  The 
Dumb  Princess  that  day." 

"You've  done  all  that,  a  whole  opera,  since  the  fourteenth 
of  May?" 

"I  worked  on  it,"  he  said,  "until  I  had  to  stop  for  the 
little  vacation  that — that  ended  at  Hickory  Hill.  And  I 
came  straight  back  to  it  from  there.  I've  been  working  at 
it  all  the  time  since.  Now,  except  for  the  scoring  in  the 
second  part  of  the  third  act,  it's  finished.  I  thought  it  was 
the  thing  I  wanted  more  than  anything  else  in  the  world. 
Just  to  get  it  written  down  on  paper,  the  thing  which  that 
moment  with  you  up  in  that  little  anteroom  started.  I've 
pretty  well  done  it.  As  far  as  the  music  itself  is  concerned, 
I  think  I  have  done  it." 

He  paused  there  and  pressed  his  lips  together.  Then  he 
went  on  speaking,  stiffly,  one  word  at  a  time.  "And  I  was 
saying  to  myself  when  you  knocked  that  I  would  tear  it  up, 
every  sheet  of  it,  and  set  it  alight  in  the  stove  yonder  if  it 
would  take  me  back  to  that  hour  we  had  together  at  Hickory 
Hill." 

The  tenderness  of  her  voice  when  she  replied  (it  had 
some  of  the  characteristic  qualities  of  his  beloved  wood- 
winds) did  not  preclude  a  bead  of  humor,  almost  mischief, 
from  gilding  the  salient  points  of  its  modeling. 

"I  know,"  she  said.  "I  can  guess  what  that  feeling  must 
be ;  the  perfect  emptiness  and  despair  of  having  a  great  work 
done.  I  suspect  there  aren't  many  great  masterpieces  that 
one  couldn't  have  bought  cheap  by  offering  the  mess  of  pot- 
tage at  the  right  moment.  Oh,  no,  I  didn't  mean  a  sneer 
when  I  said  cheap.  I  really  understand.  That  very  next 
morning  out  in  the  orchard,  thinking  over  it,  I  managed 
to  be  glad  you'd  gone — alone.  Your  own  way,  rather  than 


292  MARY  WOLLASTON 

back  with  me  to  Ravinia.  But — I'm  glad  I  came  to-night 
and  I'm  glad  I  know  about — The  Dumb  Princess." 

Watching  her  as  her  unfocused  reminiscent  gaze  made  it 
easy  for  him  to  do,  he  saw  her  go  suddenly  pale,  saw  the 
perspiration  bead  out  on  her  forehead  as  if  some  thought 
her  mind  had  found  itself  confronting  actually  sickened  her. 
He  waited  an  instant,  breathless  in  an  agony  of  doubt 
whether  to  notice  or  to  go  on  pretending  to  ignore.  After 
a  moment  the  wave  passed. 

"I  know  that  was  a  figure  of  speech,"  she  resumed,-— 
her  voice  was  deadened  a  little  in  timbre  but  its  inflections 
were  as  light  as  before.  "But  I  wish — I'd  really  be  ever 
so  much — happier — if  you'd  give  me  a  promise ;  a  perfectly 
serious,  solemn," — she  hesitated  for  a  word  and  smiled, — 
"death-bed  promise,  that  you  never  will  burn  up  The  Dumb 
Princess.  At  least  until  she's  all  published  and  produced. 
And  I  wish  that  as  soon  as  you've  got  a  copy  made,  you'd 
put  this  manuscript  in  a  really  safe  place." 

He  turned  away  from  her,  baffled,  bewildered.  She  had 
evaded  the  issue  he  had  tried  to  confront  her  with.  She  had 
taken  the  passionate  declaration  of  his  wish  to  retrieve  the 
great  error  of  his  life  as  a  passing  emotion  familiar  to  all 
creative  artists  at  certain  stages  in  their  work.  It  was  a 
natural,  almost  inevitable,  way  of  looking  at  it!  He  sat  for 
a  moment  gazing  abstractedly  at  his  littered  table,  clutching 
the  edges  of  it  with  both  hands,  resisting  a  momentary 
vertigo  of  his  own. 

She  left  her  chair  and  came  and  stood  beside  him.  She 
picked  up  one  of  the  quires  of  manuscript,  opened  it  and 
gazed  a  while  at  the  many-staved  score.  He  was  aware  of 
a  catch  in  her  breathing,  like  an  inaudible  sob,  but  presently 
she  spoke,  quite  steadily. 

"I  wish  I  could  sit  here  to-night  and  read  this.  I  wish  it 
made  even  unheard  melodies  to  me.  I'm  not  dumb  but  I 


THE  TERROR  293 

am  deaf  to  this.  There's  a  spell  beyond  your  powers  to  lift, 
my  dear." 

She  laid  her  hand  lightly  upon  his  shoulder  and  at  her 
touch  his  taut-drawn  muscles  relaxed  into  a  tremulous 
weakness.  After  a  little  silence: 

"Now  give  me  my  promise,"  she  said. 

He  did  not  immediately  answer  and  the  hand  upon  his 
shoulder  took  hold.  Under  its  compulsion,  "I'll  promise  any- 
thing you  ask,"  he  said. 

She  spoke  slowly  as  if  measuring  her  words.  "Never 
to  destroy  this  work  of  yours  that  you  call  The  Dumb  Prin- 
cess whatever  may  conceivably  happen,  however  discour- 
aged you  may  be  about  it." 

"Very  well,"  he  said,  "I  won't." 

"Say  it  as  a  promise,"  she  commanded.  "Quite  ex- 
plicitly." 

So  he  repeated  a  form  of  words  which  satisfied  her.  She 
held  him  tight  in  both  hands  for  an  instant.  Then  swiftly 
went  back  to  her  chair. 

"Don't  think  me  too  foolish,"  she  apologized.  "I  haven't 
been  sleeping  much  of  late  and  I  couldn't  have  slept  to-night 
with  a  misgiving  like  that  to  wonder  about." 

His  own  misgiving  obscurely  deepened.  He  did  not  know 
whether  it  was  the  reason  she  had  offered  for  exacting  that 
promise  from  him  or  the  mere  tone  of  her  voice  which  was 
lighter  and  more  brittle  than  he  felt  it  should  have  been. 
She  must  have  read  the  troubled  look  in  his  face  for  she 
said  at  once  and  on  a  warmer  note : 

"Oh,  my  dear,  don't !  Don't  let  my  vagaries  trouble  you. 
Let  me  tell  you  the  message  I  came  with.  It's  about  the 
other  opera.  They  want  to  put  it  on  at  once  up  at  Ravinia. 
With  Fournier  as  the  officer  and  that  little  Spanish  soprano 
as  'Dolores.'  Just  as  you  wrote  it  without  any  of  the 
terrible  things  you  tried  to  put  in  for  Paula.  It  will  have  to 


294  MARY  WOLLASTON 

be  sung  in  French  of  course,  because  neither  of  them  sings 
English.  They  want  you  there  just  as  soon  as  you  can 
come,  to  sign  the  contract  and  help  with  the  rehearsals." 

Once  more  with  an  utterly  unexpected  shift  she  left  him 
floundering,  speechless. 

He  had  forgotten  The  Outcry  except  for  his  nightmare 
efforts  to  revamp  it  for  Paula ;  had  charged  it  off  his  books 
altogether.  What  Mary  had  told  him  at  Hickory  Hill  about 
her  labors  in  its  behalf  had  signified  simply,  how  raptur- 
ously delicious  it  was  that  she  should  have  been  so  concerned 
for  him.  The  possibility  of  a  successful  outcome  to  her 
efforts  hadn't  occurred  to  him. 

She  said,  smiling  with  an  amused  tenderness  over  his 
confusion,  "I  haven't  been  too  officious,  have  I  ?" 

He  knew  he  was  being  mocked  at  and  he  managed  to 
smile  but  he  had  to  blink  and  press  his  hand  to  his  eyes 
again  before  he  could  see  her  clearly. 

"It's  not  astonishing  that  you  can  work  miracles,"  he 
said.  "The  wonder  would  be  if  you  could  not." 

"There  was  nothing  in  the  least  miraculous  about  this," 
she  declared.  "It  wasn't  done  by  folding  my  wings  and 
weaving  mystic  circles  with  a  wand.  Besides  making  that 
translation, — oh,  terribly  bad,  I'm  afraid, — into  French,  I've 
cajoled  and  intrigued  industriously  for  weeks  like  one  of 
those  patient  wicked  little  spiders  of  Henri  Fabre's.  I 
found  a  silly  flirtation  between  Fournier  and  a  married 
woman  I  knew  and  I  encouraged  it,  helped  it  along  and 
made  it  useful.  I've  used  everybody  I  could  lay  my  hands 
on." 

What  an  instrument  of  ineffable  delight  that  voice  of 
hers  was, — its  chalumeau  tenderness  just  relieved  with  the 
sparkle  of  irony.  But  he  was  smitten  now  with  the  memory 
of  his  own  refusal  to  go  to  Ravinia  so  that  Paula  would 


THE  TERROR  295 

remember  him  again.    He  blurted  out  something  of  his  con- 
trition over  this  but  she  stopped  him. 

"It  was  only  because  I  wanted  you  there.  I  would  not 
for  any  conceivable  advantage  in  the  world  have  let  you — 
oh,  even  touch  these  devices  that  I've  been  concerned  with. 
But  I've  reveled  in  them  myself.  In  doing  them  for  you, 
even  though  I  could  not  see  that  they  were  getting  any- 
where. 

"Everything  seemed  quite  at  a  standstill  when  I  left 
Ravinia  Thursday,  but  on  Thursday  night  the  William- 
sons dined  with  Mr.  Eckstein  and  went  to  the  park  with 
him ;  and  they  all  went  home  with  father  and  Paula  after- 
ward, Fournier  and  LaChaise,  too;  and  everything  hap- 
pened at  once.  I  got  a  note  from  Paula  this  morning  written 
yesterday,  asking  where  my  translation  was,  but  not  telling 
me  anything.  And  as  she  wasn't  at  home  when  I  telephoned 
to  answer  her  question  I  didn't  know  until  to-night. 

"But  about  six  o'clock  James  Wallace  telephoned  from 
the  park  and  told  me  all  about  it.  He  wanted  you  found  and 
sent  to  Ravinia  at  once.  Having  wasted  half  the  season 
and  more,  they're  now  quite  frantic  over  the  thought  of 
losing  a  minute.  And  Jimmy  says  immensely  enthusiastic. 
So,  all  you  have  to  do  now  is  to  go  up  there  and  lord  it  over 
them.  You'll  hear  it  sung;  you'll  hear  the  orchestra  play 
it.  You  wall  make  a  beginning  toward  coming  into  your 
own,  my  dear.  Because  even  if  you  don't  care  for  it  as  you 
did,  it  will  be  a  step  toward — the  princess,  won't  it?" 

She  dropped  back  against  the  cushion  as  from  weari- 
ness, and  sudden  tears  brimmed  into  her  eyes  and  spilled 
down  her  cheeks.  He  came  to  her  at  that  in  spite  of  the 
gesture  that  would  have  held  him  away. 

"You  must  believe — it's  nothing — but  happiness,"  she 
gasped. 


296  MARY  WOLLASTON 

He  sat  down  upon  the  arm  of  the  chair  and  a  little 
timidly  took  her  in  his  hands,  caressed  her  eyes  and  her  wet 
face  until  at  last  she  met  his  lips  in  a  long  kiss  and  sank 
back  quieted. 

He  stayed  on  the  chair  arm  however  and  their  hands 
remained  clasped  through  a  recollecting  silence.  She  said 
presently : 

"There  are  two  or  three  practical  things  for  you  to  re- 
member. You  mustn't  be  irritated  with  Violet  Williamson. 
She  has  let  herself  become  a  little  more  sentimental  about 
Fournier  than  I  think  in  the  beginning  she  meant  to  be  and 
you  may  find  her  under  foot  more  than  you  like.  You 
mustn't  mind  that.  And  you'll  find  a  very  friendly  helper 
in  James  Wallace.  There  is  something  a  little  caustic  about 
his  wit,  and  he  suspects  musicians  on  principle ;  but  he  will 
like  you  and  he's  thoroughly  committed  to  The  Outcry.  He 
is  a  very  good  French  scholar  and  over  difficulties  with  the 
translation,  where  passages  have  to  be  changed,  he'll  be  a 
present  help." 

He  took  her  face  in  both  his  hands  and  turned  it  up  to 
him.  "Mary,"  he  demanded  when  their  eyes  met,  "why  are 
you  saying  good-by  to  me  ?" 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE  WHOLE  STORY 

THE  shot  told.  The  harried,  desperate  look  of  panic 
with  which  she  gazed  at  him  and  tried,  tugging  at  his 
hands,  to  turn  away,  revealed  to  him  that  he  had  leaped  upon 
the  truth.  Part  of  it  anyhow.  He  closed  his  eyes,  for  an 
instant,  for  another  unaddressed  prayer  that  he  might  not 
falter  nor  let  himself  be  turned  aside  until  he  had  sounded 
the  full  depth  of  it. 

When  he  looked  at  her  again  she  had  recovered  her 
poise.  "It  was  silly,"  she  said,  "to  think  that  I  could  hide 
that  from  you.  I  am  going  away — to-morrow.  For  quite  a 
long  while." 

"Are  you  going  away — physically?  In  the  ordinary 
literal  sense,  I  mean ;  or  is  it  that  you  are  just — going  away 
from  me  ?" 

Once  more  it  was  as  if  a  trap  had  been  sprung  upon 
her.  But  this  time  he  ignored  the  gasp  and  the  sudden  cold 
slackness  of  the  hands  he  held  and  went  on  speaking  with 
hardly  a  pause. 

"I  asked  that  question,  put  it  that  way,  thinking  per- 
haps I  understood  and  that  I  could  make  it  easier  for  you 
to  tell  me."  He  broke  off,  there,  for  an  instant  to  get  his 
voice  under  control.  Then  he  asked,  steadily,  "Are  you 
going  to  marry  Graham  Stannard  ?" 

She  gasped  again,  but  when  he  looked  up  at  her  there 
was  nothing  in  her  face  but  an  incredulous1  astonishment. 

So  there  was  one  alternative  shorn  away;  one  that  he 
had  not  conceived  as  more  than  a  very  faint  possibility. 
It  was  not  into  matrimony  that  her  long  journey  was  to 
take  her.  He  pulled  himself  up  with  a  jerk  to  answer — and 

297 


298  MARY  WOLLASTON 

it  must  be  done  smoothly  and  comfortably — the  question 
she  had  just  asked  him.  How  in  the  world  had  he  ever 
come  to  think  of  a  thing  like  that? 

"Why,  it  was  in  the  air  at  Hickory  Hill  those  days  before 
you  came.  And  then  Sylvia  was  explicit  about  it,  as  some- 
thing every  one  was  hoping  for/' 

"Was  that  why  you  went  away  ?"  she  asked  with  an  in- 
tent look  into  his  face.  "Because  he  had  a — prior  claim, 
and  it  wouldn't  be  fair  to— poach  upon  his  preserves?" 

He  gave  an  ironic  monosyllable  laugh.  "I  tried,  for  the 
next  few  days  to  bamboozle  myself  into  adopting  that  ex- 
planation but  I  couldn't.  The  truth  was,  of  course,  that  I 
ran  away  simply  because  I  was  frightened.  Sheer  panic 
terror  of  the  thing  that  had  taken  hold  of  me.  The  thought 
of  meeting  you  that  next  morning  was — unendurable." 

She  too  uttered  a  little  laugh  but  it  sounded  like  one  of 
pure  happiness.  She  buried  her  face  in  his  hands  and 
touched  each  palm  with  her  lips.  "I  couldn't  have  borne  it 
if  you'd  said  the  other  thing,"  she  told  him.  "But  I  might 
have  trusted  you  not  to.  Because  you're  not  a  sentimental- 
ist. You're  almost  the  only  person  I  know  who  is  not." 

She  added  a  moment  later,  with  a  sudden  tightening  of 
her  grip  upon  his  hands,  "Have  you,  too,  discovered  that 
sentimentality  is  the  crudest  thing  in  the  world?  It  is. 
It  is  perfectly  ruthless.  It  makes  more  tragedies  than  mal- 
ice. Ludicrous  tragedies — which  are  less  endurable  than  the 
other  sort.  Unless  one  were  enough  of  an  Olympian  so  that 
he  could  laugh."  She  relaxed  again  and  made  a  nestling 
movement  toward  him.  "I  thought  for  a  while  of  you  that 
way." 

He  managed  to  speak  as  if  the  idea  amused  him.  "As 
an  Olympian  ?  No,  if  I  had  a  mountain  it  wouldn't  be  that 
one.  But  I  like  the  valleys  better,  anyhow." 

"I  know,"  she  said  contentedly.    Then  her  voice  dark- 


THE  WHOLE  STORY  299 

ened.  "I'm  just  at  the  beginning  of  you — now  .  .  ." 
The  sentence  ended  unnaturally,  though  he  had  done  noth- 
ing to  interrupt  it. 

Deliberately  he  startled  her.  "What  time  does  your 
train  go,  to-morrow?"  he  asked.  "Or  haven't  you  selected 
one  ?  You  haven't  even  told  me  where  it  is  you  are  going." 

Through  his  hands  which  held  her  he  felt  the  shock,  the 
momentary  agony  of  the  effort  to  recover  the  threatened 
balance,  the  resolute  relaxation  of  the  muscles  and  the 
steadying  breath  she  drew. 

"Oh,  there  are  plenty  of  trains,"  she  said.  "You  mustn't 
bother. — Why,  Wallace  Hood  has  a  sister  living  in  Omaha. 
'(Wallace  Hood,  not  James  Wallace.  It  would  be  terrible 
if  you  confused  them.)  She's  been  trying  for  months  to 
find  a  nursery  governess.  And  I've  been  trying — perhaps 
you  didn't  know ;  the  family  have  been  very  unpleasant 
about  it — to  find  a  job. — Oh,  for  the  most  realistic  of  rea- 
sons, among  others.  Well,  it  occurred  to  me  the  other  day 
that  Wallace's  sister  and  I  might  be  looking  for  each  other." 

There  she  paused,  but  only  for  a  moment.  Then  she 
added,  very  explicitly,  "So  I'm  going  to  Omaha  to-morrow." 

Even  her  lying  she  had  to  do  honestly.  She  preferred, 
he  saw,  that  he  should  remember  she  had  lied  to  having  him 
recall  that  she  had  tricked  him  by  an  evasion. 

One  need  not  invoke  clairvoyance  to  account  for  his  in- 
candescent certainty  that  she  had  lied.  The  mere  uncon- 
scious synthesis  of  the  things  she  had  said  and  left  unsaid 
along  the  earlier  stages  of  their  talk,  would  have  amounted 
to  a  demonstration.  Her  moment  of  panic  over  his  dis- 
covery that  she  was  saying  good-by,  her  irrespressible  shud- 
der at  the  question  whether  she  was  going  away  in  the 
ordinary  literal  sense  of  the  phrase;  finally,  her  pitiful  at- 
tempt to  avoid,  in  answer  to  his  last  question,  a  categorical 
untruth  and  then  her  acceptance  of  it  as,  after  all,  prefer- 


300  MARY  WOLLASTON 

able  to  the  other.  But  it  was  by  no  such  pedestrian  process 
as  this  that  he  reached  the  truth. 

He  knew,  now,  why  he  had  been  terrified  from  the  mo- 
ment she  came  into  the  room.  He  knew  why  she  had  wrung 
that  promise  from  him — a  death-bed  promise  she  had  dared 
with  a  smile  to  call  it — that  he  would  not,  whatever  hap- 
pened, destroy  The  Dumb  Princess.  It  would  be  a  likely 
enough  thing  for  him  to  do,  she  had  perceived,  when  he 
learned  the  truth.  She  could  not — sleep,  she  had  told  him, 
until  that  surmise  was  laid. 

There  were,  as  she  had  said,  plenty  of  trains  to  that 
unknown  destination  of  hers,  but  he  thought  that  that  word 
sleep  offered  the  true  clue.  She  was  a  physician's  daughter ; 
there  must  be,  somewhere  in  that  house,  a  chest  or  cupboard 
that  would  supply  what  she  needed.  They'd  find  her  in 
her  own  bed,  in  that  room  he  had  once  cast  a  glance  into 
on  his  way  up-stairs  to  Paula. 

The  conviction  grew  upon  him  that  she  had  her  plans 
completely  laid;  yes,  and  her  preparations  accomplished. 
That  quiet  leisureliness  of  hers  would  not  have  been  hu- 
manly possible  if  either  her  resolution  or  the  means  for 
executing  it  had  remained  in  doubt.  It  was  likely  that  she 
had  whatever  it  was — a  narcotic,  probably;  morphine;  she 
wouldn't,  conceivably,  resort  to  any  of  the  corrosives — 
upon  her  person  at  this  moment.  In  that  little  silken  bag 
which  hung  from  her  wrist. 

He  clenched  the  finger-nails  into  the  palms  of  his  hands. 
This  thing  was  a  nightmare.  He  had  fallen  asleep  over 
his  table;  had  only  to  wake  himself. — It  would  not  do  to 
play  with  an  idea  like  that.  Nor  with  the  possibility  that 
he  had  misread  her  mind.  He  knew.  He  was  not  mis- 
taken. Let  him  never  glance  aside  from  that. 

For  one  moment  he  thought  wildly  of  trying  to  call  in 
help  from  outside,  of  frustrating  her  design  by  sheer  force. 


THE  WHOLE  STORY  301 

But  that  could  not  be  done.  As  between  them,  he  would 
be  reckoned  the  madman.  Her  project  might  be  deferred 
by  that  means,  perhaps.  It  could  not  be  prevented. 

It  was  that  terrible  self-possession  of  hers  that  gave 
the  last  turn  to  the  screw.  She  could  not  be  dealt  with 
as  one  frantic,  beside  herself,  to  be  wooed  and  quieted  back 
into  a  state  of  sanity.  She  was  at  this  moment  as  sane  as 
he.  She  was  not  to  be  held  back,  either,  by  a  mere  assurance 
of  his  love  for  her.  She  had  never,  it  appeared,  lacked 
that  assurance.  But  her  life,  warmed  even  as  it  was  by 
their  love,  presented  itself  to  her  somehow  as  something 
that  it  was  not  possible  to  go  on  with. 

This  was  very  strange.  All  of  its  externals  that  were 
visible  to  him  made  up,  one  would  have  said,  a  pattern  singu- 
larly gracious  and  untroubled.  Buried  in  it  somewhere 
there  must  be  some  toxic  focus  that  poisoned  everything. 
He  must  meet  her  on  her  own  ground.  He  must  show  her 
another  remedy  than  the  desperate  one  she  was  now  re- 
solved upon.  And  before  he  could  find  the  remedy  he  must 
discover  the  virus.  The  only  clue  he  had  was  the  thing 
she  said  about  sentimentalists,  and  the  tragedies  they  caused. 
More  tragedies  than  malice  was  responsible  for.  He 
thought  she  was  probably  right  about  that.  It  was  some 
such  tragedy  anyhow,  ludicrous,  unendurable,  that  had 
driven  her  to  this  acquiescence  in  defeat. 

He  said,  in  as  even  a  tone  as  he  could  manage,  "I  asked 
about  trains  because  I  wondered  whether  there  was  any- 
thing to  hurry  you  to-night.  Packing  to  do  or  such  a  mat- 
ter; or  whether  we  mightn't  have  a  really  leisurely  visit. 
I  haven't  much  idea  what  time  it  is  except  that  I  don't  think 
I've  eaten  anything  since  around  the  middle  of  the  day. 
Have  you  ?  If  you'd  stay  and  have  supper  with  me  .  .  . 
But  I  suppose  you're  expected  somewhere  else." 

She  smiled  ironically  at  this,  then  laughed  at  herself.  "It 


302  MARY  WOLLASTON 

happens  rather  funnily  that  I  haven't  been  so  little  expected 
or  looked  after,  since  I  came  home  from  New  York,  as  I 
am  to-night.  I'm  not — in  a  hurry  at  all.  I'll  stay  as  long 
as  you  like." 

"Is  that  a  promise?"  he  asked.  "As  long  as  I  liked 
would  be  a  long  while." 

"I'll  stay,"  she  said,  "as  long  as  I  can  see  I'm  making 
you  happy.  When  I  find  myself  beginning  to  be  a — torment 
to  you,  I  shall — vanish." 

He  was  almost  overmastered  by  the  temptation  to  forget 
everything  except  his  love  for  her;  to  let  himself  be  per- 
suaded that  his  ghastly  surmise  was  a  product  of  his  own 
fatigue  and  sleepless  nights.  Even  supposing  there  were  a 
basis  for  it,  could  he  not  keep  her  safe  by  just  holding  her 
fast  in  his  arms  ? 

He  dashed  the  thought  out  of  his  mind.  She  would  sur- 
render to  his  embrace,  how  eagerly  he  already  knew.  For 
a  matter  of  moments,  for  a  few  swift  hours  she  might  for- 
get. She  had  perhaps  come  to  him  meaning  to  forget  for  a 
while  in  just  that  way.  But  no  embrace  could  be  eternal. 
He'd  have  to  let  her  go  at  last  and  nothing  would  be  changed 
save  that  she  would  have  a  memory  of  him  to  take  with  her 
into  her  long  sleep. 

No,  love  must  wait.  That  obscure  unendurable  night- 
mare tragedy  of  hers  must  be  brought  out  into  the  light 
first  and  shorn  of  its  horrors. 

So  he  managed  for  the  moment  a  lighter  note.  He  would 
not  let  her  help  in  the  preparation  of  the  meager  little  meal 
which  was  all  that  his  immediate  resources  ran  to.  He 
hadn't  quite  realized  how  exiguous  it  was  going  to  be  when 
he  spoke  of  it  as  supper.  It  was  nothing  but  a  slice  of  Swiss 
cheese,  a  fresfi  carton  of  biscuits  and  a  flagon  of  so-called 
Chianti  illicitly  procured  from  the  Italian  grocery  down- 
stairs. 


THE  WHOLE  STORY  303 

He  cleared  his  work  table  and  anchored  her  in  the  easy 
chair  at  the  same  time  by  putting  into  her  lap  the  bulky 
manuscript  of  The  Dumb  Princess,  and  it  was  this  they 
talked  about  while  he  laid  the  cloth — a  clean  towel — and  set 
out  his  scanty  array  of  dishes.  He  feared  when  they  drew 
up  to  the  table  that  she  was  not  going  to  be  able  to  eat  at 
all,  and  he  was  convinced  that  she  was  even  more  in  need 
of  food  than  he.  But  the  wine,  thin  and  acidulous  as  it 
was,  helped,  and  he  saw  to  it  that  for  a  while  she  had  no 
chance  to  talk.  He  told  her  the  story  of  The  Dumb  Prin- 
cess in  detail  and  dwelt  a  little  upon  the  half  formulated 
symbolism  of  it. 

When  at  last  he  paused,  she  said,  "I  think  I  know  why 
the  princess  was  dumb.  Because  when  she  tried  to  speak 
no  one  wanted  to  hear  what  she  had  to  say.  They  insisted 
on  keeping  her  an  image  merely,  so  that  they  could  go  on 
attributing  to  her  just  the  thoughts  they  wished  her  to  think 
and  just  the  desires  they  wanted  her  to  feel.  That's  the  spell 
that  has  made  many  a  woman  dumb  upon  all  the  essentials." 

He  gripped  his  hands  together  between  his  knees,  leaned 
a  little  forward,  drew  a  steadying  breath  and  said,  "There's 
something  I  wish  you'd  do  for  me  just  while  we're  sitting 
quietly  like  this.  It  has  been  so  momentary,  this 
life  of  ours  together, — the  times  I  mean  when  we've  been 
bodily  together.  The  whole  of  it  could  be  reckoned  quite 
easily  in  minutes.  There  has  been  more  packed  into  them, 
of  course,  than  into  many  a  lover's  months  and  years,  but 
one  effect  it  has  had  on  me  has  been  to  make  you,  when  you 
aren't  here  physically  with  me,  like  this,  where  by  merely 
reaching  out  I  can  touch  you,  a  little — visionary  to  me. 
I  confuse  you  with  the  Dumb  Princess  over  there  whom 
you  made  me  create.  I  get  misgivings  that  you're  just  a 
sort  of  wraith.  Well,  if  you're  going  away  and  we  aren't 
to  be  within — touching  distance  of  each  other  again  for  a 


304  MARY  WOLLASTON 

long  while — perhaps  months,  I  want  more  of  you,  that  my 
memory  can  hold  on  by.  The  real  every-day  person  that 
you  are  instead,  as  you  say,  of  the  image  I've  had  to  make 
of  you.  So  I  wish  you'd  tell  me  as  nearly  as  you  can  re- 
member everything  that  you've  done — everything  that  has 
happened  to  you — to-day." 

That  last  word  was  like  the  touch  of  a  spur.  She  shud- 
dered as  she  cried,  "Not  to-day!" 

He  did  not  press  for  a  reason  and  the  next  moment  she 
went  on  in  her  natural  manner  again.  "That's  a  strange 
thing  for  you  to  wish.  At  least  the  strangeness  of  it  strikes 
me  after  some  of  the  things  that  have  been  happening  lately. 
Yet  I  don't  believe  it  happens  often  that  a  lover  asks  as 
specifically  as  that  to  be — disillusioned.  And  that  is  what 
you  would  be.  Because  the  complete  story  of  a  day, — . 
any  day, — with  no  suppressions,  nothing  tucked  decently 
away  out  of  sight,  would  be  a  pretty  searching  test." 

"That's  why  I  asked  for  it,"  he  said,  "I'd  like  to  be 
disillusioned ;  just  as  completely  as  possible." 

"That's  because  you're  so  sure  you  wouldn't  be."  The 
raggedness  of  her  voice  betrayed  a  strong  emotion.  With 
a  leap  of  the  pulse  he  told  himself  that  it  was  as  if 
she  were  crying  out  against  some  unforeseen  hope.  "You 
think  it  would  merely  be  that  lovely  little  image  of  yours — • 
the  Dumb  Princess,  coming  to  life." 

"I'd  rather  have  the  reality,"  he  told  her,  "whatever 
it  is.  I  think  I  can  make  you  see  that  that  must  be 
true.  The  person  I  love  is  you  who  are  sitting  there  across 
the  table  from  me.  I  don't  believe  that  any  one  in  the  world 
was  ever  more  completely  and  utterly  adored  than  you  are 
being  adored  at  this  moment.  I  love  the  things  I  know 
you  by.  The  things  I've  come  to  recognize  as  yours.  I 
know  some  of  your  qualities  that  way;  your  sensitiveness, 
your  uprightness,  your  fastidious  honesty  that  makes  you 


THE  WHOLE  STORY  305 

hate  evasions  and  substitutes, — everything  you  mean  when 
you  say  sentimentality.  And  I  know  your  resolution  that 
carries  you  along  even  when  you  are  afraid, — when  your 
sensitiveness  makes  you  afraid.  I  admire  all  those  quali- 
ties, but  it  isn't  their  intrinsic  worth  that  makes  me  love 
them.  I  love  them  because  they're  the  things  I  kn  >w  you 
by.  I  can't  be  mistaken  about  them  because  I've  felt  them. 
Just  as  I've  felt  your  hands  and  your  mouth  and  your  hair. 
Well,  then,  whatever  your  days  have  been,  one  day  after 
another,  they  have  in  the  end  produced  you  sitting  there 
as  you  sit  now.  Whatever  your — ingredients  are  they're 
your  ingredients.  The  total  works  out  to  you.  Whereas  my 
illusions  work  out  to  nothing  better  than  my  little  image 
of  the  Dumb  Princess." 

"Would  it  surprise  you,"  she  asked,  "to  know  that  I 
could  be  cruel  ?  I  mean  exactly  what  the  word  means.  Like 
a  little  boy  who  tears  the  legs  off  a  beetle.  Can  you  imagine 
me  hurting  some  one  frightfully,  whom  I  needn't  have  hurt 
at  all?  Some  one  who  was  trying  in  his  own  way  to  be 
kind  to  me?" 

He  smiled.  "I  can  imagine  your  being  cruel  to  a  senti- 
mentalist," he  said.  "Not  deliberately,  of  course.  Only 
after  you  had  been  hounded,  like  a  little  white  cat,  into  a 
corner.  By  some  one  who  wanted  you  for  an  image,  merely, 
that  he  himself  could  attribute  all  the  appropriate  thoughts 
and  desires  to.  I  can  imagine  you  turning,  at  last,  and  rend- 
ing him ; — limb  from  limb,  if  you  like." 

She  gazed  at  him,  wide-eyed,  for  a  long  moment ;  then 
she  drooped  forward  over  the  table  and  cradled  her  head 
in  her  arms.  With  his  hands  he  tried  to  comfort  her  but 
he  felt  that  they  were  clumsy  and  ineffectual. 

"I've  hurt  you  horribly,"  he  said,  when  he  could  com- 
mand his  voice.  "Probing  in  like  that." 

This  must  be  the  unendurable  tragedy  she  had  referred 


306  MARY  WOLLASTON 

to  a  while  ago.    She  was  speaking,  voicelessly  and  he  bent 
down  to  listen. 

".  .  .  if  you  knew  the  comfort!  I  suppose  I  ought 
to  be  frightened — at  your  guessing  like  that,  but  it  seems 
natural,  to-night,  that  you  should. — You  know  who  it  was, 
don't  you  ?" 

"Yes,"  he  told  her  confidently.  "It  happened  just  to-day, 
didn't  it?" 

"It  was  yesterday  he  asked  me  to  marry  him,"  she  said. 
"That  wasn't  hounding.  He  had  a  right  to,  I  mean.  I 
thought  I  would  marry  him,  once.  I  told  him  I  would  if 
I  could.  I  meant,  I  would  if  I  could  make  him  understand 
what  I  really  was.  He  thought  I  meant  something  alto- 
gether different,  something  that  his  image  of  me  might  have 
meant  quite  nicely.  Yesterday  when  he  asked  me  again, 
I  flew  into  a  fury  and  told  him  what  I  am  really  like.  I 
needn't  have  done  it.  I  could  have  told  him  that  the  reason 
I  wouldn't  marry  him  was  because  I  was  in  love  with  you. 
That  would  have  been  true — in  a  way.  I  mean,  it  wasn't 
the  reason  in  the  beginning;  nor  even  after  I  was  in  love 
with  you — so  long  as  you  didn't  know.  But  I  never  thought 
of  telling  him  that.  I  just  wanted  to — smash  that  image 
of  his.  And  I  did.  I  knew  it  was  cruel  when  I  did  it,  but 
not  how  terrible  until  this  morning  when  Rush  got  a  letter 
from  him." 

She  had  to  stop  there  to  master  a  sob.  He  went  around 
the  table  and  took  her  in  his  arms.  "Come  over  to  the 
big  chair,"  he  said,  "where  I  can — hold  you.  I  can't  let 
you  go  on  like  this.  You  can  tell  me  the  rest  of  it  there." 

She  released  herself  from  his  hands  by  taking  them  in 
her  own  and  pressing  them  for  a  moment  tight.  Then  she 
let  them  go. 

"I  couldn't,"  she  said.  "I  couldn't  be  comforted  like 
that  while  I  was  telling  you  about  him." 


THE  WHOLE  STORY  307 

He  understood  instantly.  "That's  like  you,"  he  com- 
mented. "You're  always  like  yourself,  thank  God."  He 
walked  away  to  the  chair  he  had  invited  her  to  and  stood 
behind  it,  gripping  its  padded  leather  back.  "He  wrote  your 
brother  a  letter  then."  He  had  spoken,  he  thought,  quietly 
and  evenly  enough,  but  the  indignation  he  felt  must  have 
betrayed  itself  in  his  voice  for  she  answered  instantly : 

"You  mustn't  be  angry  about  that.  He  had  to  write  to 
Rush,  you  see.  Rush  had  been  in  his  confidence  about  it 
all  the  while.  Rush  knew  his  hopes  and  his  explanations. 
Rush  knew  of  his  coming  yesterday,  was  waiting  up  at 
Wallace  Hood's  apartment  for  his  news.  Now,  do  you  see 
how  horrible  it  was?  He  couldn't  tell  Rush  what  I  had 
said  to  him.  There  was  nothing  he  could  tell  him.  He 
couldn't  even  face  him.  He  did  the  only  thing  I'd  left  for 
him  to  do." 

March  asked,  "What  has  he  done?" 

"We  don't  know,  exactly.  Just  gone  away,  I  suppose. 
The  letter  was  written  about  midnight  from  the  University 
Club.  He  said  he  wasn't  coming  back  to  Hickory  Hill.  That 
he  couldn't  possibly  come  back.  He'd  arrange  things,  some- 
how, later.  He  told  Rush  not  to  try  to  find  him  nor  make 
any  sort  of  fuss,  and  to  be  very  kind  to  me ;  not  to  question 
nor  worry  me." 

She  broke  off  there  and  looked  intently  up  at  him.  In 
her  eyes  he  thought  he  saw  incredulity  fighting  against  a 
dawning  hope.  "I  wonder,"  she  went  breathlessly  on,  "if 
you  can  understand  this,  too.  Can  you  see  that,  for  him, 
the  unbearable  thing  about  it — was  that  it  was  ludicrous? 
The  contrast  between  what  he  had  believed  me  to  be  and — 
what  I  am  ?" 

He  interrupted  sharply,  with  a  frown  of  irritation,  "Don't 
put  it  like  that !" 

"Well,  then,"  she  amended,  "the  contrast  between  his 


308  MARY  WOLLASTON 

explanation  of  the  way  I  had  been  treating  him,  and  the 
true  one?" 

"That  is  a  thing  I  think  I  can  understand/'  he  said.  "It 
was  a  sort  of — awakening  of  Don  Quixote.  To  a  fine  sen- 
sitive boy  nothing  could  give  a  sharper  wrench  than  that. — 
I'm  moving  in  the  dark,"  he  added.  Yet  he  knew  he 
was  drawing  near  the  light.  The  secret  he  had  set  out  to 
discover  was  not  very  far  away. 

"You  see  well  enough,"  she  said.  "Better  than  Rush, 
though  I  tried  to  explain  it  to  him.  He'd  caught  a  surmise 
of  the  truth,  too,  I  think,  in  New  York,  when  he  came 
back  from  France  and  brought  me  home.  But  he  wouldn't 
look.  Father  wouldn't,  either,  once  when  I  tried  to  tell 
him  about  it.  It  was  too  horrible  to  be  thought, — let  alone 
believed. — I  don't  quite  see  how  I  can  have  gone  on  believ- 
ing it  myself." 

The  look  he  saw  in  her  eyes  made  him  wonder  how  she 
could.  He  managed  to  hold  his  own  gaze  steady.  It  gave 
him  a  sense  of  somehow  supporting  her. 

"But  you,"  she  said, — "you,  of  all  people  in  the  world, 
don't  seem  to  feel  that  way  about  it.  You  were  there — wait- 
ing for  me — before  I  even  tried  to  tell  you.  Oh,  you  do 
understand,  don't  you  ?" 

"I  think,"  he  told  her — and  the  smile  that  came  with 
the  words  was  spontaneous  enough,  though  it  did  feel  rather 
tremulous — "I  think  I  could  almost  repeat  the  sentence  you 
demolished  young  Stannard  with  in  your  own  words.  But 
can't  you  see  why  it  doesn't  demolish  me?  It's  because  I 
love  you." 

"So  did  he.    So  do  father  and  Rush." 

"Not  you.  Not  quite  you.  Don't  you  see?  It's  just 
the  thing  I  was  trying  to  tell  you  a  while  ago.  What  they 
insist  on  loving  is — oh,  partly  you,  of  course,  but  partly  a 
sort  of — projection  of  themselves  that  they  call  you,  dress 


THE  WHOLE  STORY  309 

you  out  in,  try  to  compel  you  to  fit.  One  can  fight  hard  to 
preserve  an  outlying  bit  of  one's  self  like  that.  But  there 
would  be  a  limit  I  should  think.  How  your  brother,  with 
a  letter  like  that  in  his  hands,  could  refuse  to  look  at  what 
you  were  trying  to  make  him  see  .  .  ." 

"He  had  a  theory,  that  began  when  we  were  in  New 
York  together  as  a  sort  of  joke,  that  I  was  a  case  of  shell- 
shock.  So  whenever  there  has  been  anything  really  un- 
comfortable to  face,  he  has  always  had  that  to  fall  back 
upon." 

A  momentary  outburst  of  anger  escaped  him.  "You've 
been  tortured!"  he  cried  furiously.  He  reined  in  at  once, 
however.  "You've  never,  then,"  he  went  on  quietly,  "been 
able  to  tell  the  story  to  any  one.  I'm  sure  you  didn't  tell 
it  to  Graham  Stannard.  You  didn't  even  try  to." 

She  shook  her  head.  The  pitifulness  of  her,  sitting  there 
so  spent,  so  white,  blurred  his  vision  again  with  sudden 
tears.  But  after  he  had  disposed  of  them,  he  managed  a 
smile  and  sat  down  comfortably  in  his  easy  chair. 

"You  couldn't  find  a  better  person  than  me  to  tell  it  to," 
he  said. 

"You  know  already,"  she  protested.  "At  least,  you 
know  what  it  comes  to." 

"I  know  the  brute  fact,"  he  admitted,  "but  that  and  the 
whole  truth  are  seldom  quite  the  same  thing." 

He  saw  the  way  her  hands  locked  and  twisted  together 
and  remembered  with  a  heart-arresting  pang,  her  half- 
choked  cry,  "Don't!  Don't  hurt  them  like  that!"  when  his 
own  had  agonized  in  such  a  grip.  But  no  caress  of  his 
could  help  her  now.  He  held  himself  still  in  his  chair  and 
waited. 

"The  whole  truth  of  this  story  isn't  any — prettier  tfian 
the  brute  fact.  There  weren't  any  extenuating  circum- 
stances." 


310  MARY  WOLLASTON 

Then  she  sat  erect  and  faced  him.  He  was  amazed  to 
see  a  flush  of  color  come  creeping  into  her  cheeks.  Her 
eyes  brightened,  the  brows  drew  down  a  little,  her  voice 
steadied  itself  and  the  words  came  swiftly. 

"I  think  I  must  make  sure  you  understand  that  it  isn't 
the  sort  of  story  that  you  usually  find  enveloping  that  par- 
ticular brute  fact.  I  wasn't  deceived  nor  betrayed  by  any- 
body. There  isn't  anybody  you  can  take  as  a  villain.  Just 
a  nice,  rather  inarticulate  boy,  whom  I  met  at  a  dance  the 
evening  before  he  went  overseas." 

She  broke  off  there  to  ask  him  shortly,  "When  was  it 
that  you  went  over?" 

"Not  until  September,"  he  said,  "when  it  looked  like  a 
very  long  chance  if  we  ever  got  to  the  front  at  all.  Of 
course,  you  know,  we  didn't.  But  this  was  a  lot  earlier, 
wasn't  it?" 

"The  seventeenth  of  April,"  she  said.  "We'll  never  for- 
get those  weeks,  any  of  us,  who  were  in  New  York  doing 
what  we  called  war  work,  but  it's  hard  not  to  feel  that  we 
weren't  different  persons  somehow.  I  don't  mean  that  to 
sound  like  making  excuses.  We  were  more  our  real  selves 
perhaps  than  we  will  ever  be  again.  Anyhow,  we  worked 
harder  all  day  long,  and  never  felt  tired,  and  in  the  evening 
most  of  the  people  I  knew  went  out  a  lot,  to  dinners  and 
dances. 

"We  could  always  make  ourselves  believe,  of  course, 
that  we  were  doing  that  to  cheer  up  the  men  who  were  going 
to  France — and  were  very  likely  never  coming  back.  Like 
the  English  women  one  read  about.  The  only  thing  that 
used  to  trouble  me  in  those  days  was  a  perfectly  scorching 
self-contempt  that  used  to  come  when  I  realized  that  I  was 
enjoying  it  all ;  enjoying  the  emotional  thrill  of  it.  I  knew 
I  was  getting  off  cheap. 

"I  suppose  I  needn't  have  told  you  all  that.    You'd  have 


THE  WHOLE  STORY  311 

understood  it  anyhow.  But  that  was  how  I  felt  when  I 
went  to  that  dance.  As  if  it  would  be  a  relief  to  do  some- 
thing— costly. 

"It  was  a  uniform  dance  as  far  as  the  men  were  con- 
cerned. We  made  ourselves,  of  course,  as — attractive 
as  we  knew  how.  Somebody  introduced  this  boy  to  me  with 
just  the  look  that  said,  'Do  be  kind  to  him,'  and  that's 
what  I  set  out,  very  resolutely  and  virtuously,  to  be.  He 
couldn't  talk  much  beyond  monosyllables  and  he  couldn't 

dance, — even  with  me.     I  mean,  I've  danced  so  much    . 
» 

"I've  seen  you  dance,  my  dear,"  he  reminded  her,  and 
saw  how,  with  a  deep-drawn  breath,  the  memory  of  that 
night  at  Hickory  Hill  came  back  to  her. 

"Don't,"  she  gasped.  "Let  me  go  on."  But  it  was 
the  better  part  of  a  minute  before  she  could. 

"We  sat  out  two  or  three  dances  together  and  then,  when 
I  might  decently  enough  have  passed  him  on  to  some  one 
else  with  that  same  sort  of  explanatory  look — I  didn't. 
Partly  because  of  the  feeling  I  have  told  you  about  and 
partly  because  I  was  attracted  to  him.  He  was  big  and 
young  and  good-looking,  and  his  voice — oh,  one  can't  ex- 
plain those  things.  It  wasn't  pure  altruism.  That's  what 
you  must  see.  And  then  he  got  up  suddenly  and  said, 
'Good-by.'  It  was  early,  you  know,  and  I  asked  him  why 
he  was  going.  He  said  he  wanted  to  get  out  of  there. 
Rather  savagely. 

"I  got  up  too  and  said  I  felt  the  same  way  about  it. 
So  he  asked  if  he  might  'see  me  home/  The  dance  was  in 
the  East  Sixties.  There  had  been  a  shower  but  it  was  clear 
then  and  warm.  There  weren't  any  taxis  about  and,  anyhow, 
he  didn't  seem  to  think  of  looking  for  one,  and  we  went 
over  and  took  a  Lexington  Avenue  car.  When  we  turned 
at  Twenty-third  Street  I  said  we'd  get  out  and  walk.  He'd 


312  MARY  WOLLASTOX 

said  hardly  anything,  but  we  had  sat  rather  close  in  the  car 
and  he  had  been  holding  a  fold  of  my  cloak  between  his 
fingers. 

"We  went  on  down  Lexington  to  Gramercy  Park. 
There  was  shrubbery  in  flower  inside  the  iron  fence  and 
some  of  the  trees  had  been  leafing  out  that  day  and  the  air 
was  very  still  and  sweet.  We  both  stopped  for  a  minute 
without  saying  anything  and  I  slipped  my  hand  farther 
through  his  arm  and  took  his. 

"He  gave  a  sort  of  sob  and  said,  'You  wouldn't  do  that 
if  you  knew  about  me.'  I  said,  'You'd  better  tell  me  and 
see.' 

"We  walked  on  again,  around  the  park  and  across  Twen- 
tieth Street  and  down  Fifth  Avenue.  When  we  got  to  my 
door  he  hadn't  told  me. 

"My  flat  was  just  the  second  story  of  an  old  made-over 
house.  There  was  no  one  about,  I  mean,  to  stare  or  wonder, 
and  I  asked  him  to  come  in.  When  we  were  inside  I  looked 
at  my  watch  and  asked  him  what  time  he  had  to  report. 
He  said  not  until  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning.  He  was 
going  over  detached.  There  was  nothing  but  a  hotel  to 
go  back  to. 

"If  I'd  asked  him  that  question  out  on  the  sidewalk,  and 
got  that  answer,  I  don't  know  whether  I'd  have  asked  him 
in  or  not. 

"He  just  stood  looking  at  me  for  a  minute  after  telling 
me  he  hadn't  anywhere  to  report  that  night.  Then  he  turned 
away  and  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  my  couch  and  bent  his 
face  down  on  his  hands  and  began  to  talk.  He  told  me 
what  was  the  matter  with  him.  Of  course,  the  same  thing 
must  have  tormented  thousands  of  them, — the  terror  of 
being  afraid.  He  felt  pretty  sure  he  was  a  coward. 

"Mostly,  I  think,  that  fear  was  pretty  sensibly  dealt 
with  in  this  war.  It  got  talked  out  openly.  But  he  must 


THE  WHOLE  STORY  313 


have  been  a  terribly  lonely  person.  He  came  from 
but  somehow  he  got  sent  to  one  of  the  southern  canton- 
ments, and  had  his  officer's  training,  such  as  it  was,  down 
there.  Then  he  was  sent  along  to  fill  in  somewhere  else. 
I  don't  remember  all  the  details.  He'd  come  to  New  York 
alone.  The  men  he  had  gone  to  the  dance  with  he  had  only 
met  that  afternoon. 

"I  tried  to  help  him.  I  told  him  how  some  of  the  off>- 
cers  in  the  French  and  English  armies,  who  had  the  high- 
est decorations  for  courage,  had  suffered  most  hor- 
ribly, in  advance,  from  fear.  I  could  tell  him  two  or  three 
that  I  knew  about  personally  ;  men  who  had  told  their  own 
stories  to  me.  Well,  that  helped  a  little,  roused  him  out 
of  his  daze,  gave  him  a  little  gleam  of  hope  perhaps.  But 
it  wasn't  much  ;  words  can't  be,  sometimes. 

"He  wanted  more  than  that.  He  wanted  me.  He  didn't 
want  to  go  back  alone  to  that  hotel.  So  I  kept  him.  Early 
in  the  morning,  about  six  o'clock,  I  cooked  his  breakfast 
and  ate  it  with  him  and  kissed  him  good-by." 

She  made  a  sudden  savage  gesture  of  impatience. 
"I  didn't  mean  to  make  it  sound  like  that.  That  sounds 
noble  and  self-sacrificial  and  sickening.  I  suppose  because 
that's  the  half  of  the  truth  that  is  easiest  to  tell.  I  did  want 
to  make  an  end  of  perpetually  getting  off  cheap.  I  did  have 
a  sort  of  feeling  of  establishing  my  good  faith  with  myself. 
I  wanted  to  comfort  him  and  make  him  happy.  But  it's 
also  true  that  I'd  been  attracted  to  him  from  the  very  first 
minute,  and  that  it  thrilled  me  when  I  first  touched  his  hand, 
there  by  the  park  railing,  and  afterward  when  he  took  me  in 
his  arms." 

Since  his  last  interruption  he  had  sat  motionless, 
even  breathing  small  in  the  extremity  of  his  effort  not  to 
hinder.  But  now  he  rose  and  without  speaking,  came  to 
her  and  bending  down,  kissed  her  forehead,  her  eyes,  her 


314  MARY  WOLLASTON 

mouth.  Then  he  seated  himself  on  the  table  close  beside 
her  and  took  possession,  thoughtfully,  of  one  of  her  hands. 

"Did  you  ever  hear  anything  more  of  him?"  he  asked. 

She  shook  her  head.  "I  don't  think  he  remarked  my 
name  at  all  when  we  were  introduced,"  she  said,  "nor  asked 
what  it  was  afterward.  I  think  it  must  all  have  seemed 
afterward  a  little  unreal  to  him.  The  girls  he'd  known  at 
home  don't  smoke  cigarettes  nor  drink  champagne — nor 
wear  their  dresses  as  low  as  we  do.  He  couldn't  once  have 
thought  of  people  like  father  and  Rush  and  Aunt  Lucile 
as  belonging  to  me.  I  remembered  his  name  and  used  to 
look  to  see  if  it  was  there  when  I  read  the  casualty  lists, 
but  I  never  did  see  it  again. — No,  that's  the  whole  story; 
just  what  I  have  told  you." 


CHAPTER  XXV 

DAYBREAK 

THERE  followed  the  conclusion  of  the  story,  an  interval 
of  ease.  It  gave  March,  to  begin  with,  a  new  access  of 
courage,  almost  of  confidence,  to  note  that  she  did  not  fade 
white  again  and  that  the  sick  look  of  horror,  banished  from 
her  eyes  by  the  mere  intensity  of  her  determination  to  con- 
vey the  whole  truth  to  him,  did  not  return  to  them.  She 
substituted  her  other  hand  for  the  one  he  held  in  order  to 
shift  her  position  a  little  and  lean  against  his  knees. 

Her  mind  had  not  detached  itself  from  the  story  as  she 
made  evident  by  the  reflective  way  in  which  she  went  on 
thinking  aloud  about  it;  dwelling  on  some  of  the  curious 
consequences  of  the  adventure.  It  was  surprising — she  won- 
dered if  it  indicated  anything  really  abnormal  in  her — the 
way  she  had  felt  about  it  afterward. 

She'd  felt  nothing  in  the  least  like  shame.  Certainly  not 
at  first.  On  the  contrary,  she'd  taken  a  deep  soul-satisfying 
pride  in  it,  a  kind  of  warm  sense  of  readiness  for  anything. 

She  told  him  with  a  little  clutch  of  embarrassment  and 
resolution,  about  another  incident  that  happened  somewhat 
later,  attributing  an  importance  to  it  which  he  conceded 
while  he  reflected  with  a  smile  that  most  people,  men  and 
women  virtuous  or  otherwise,  would  have  regarded  as  ridic- 
ulously disproportionate.  The  incident  concerned  a  man 
whom  she  didn't  much  like,  she  said,  but  found  somehow, 
fascinating.  He  had  been  paying  her  attentions  of  a  rather 
experimental  sort  for  weeks,  maneuvering,  arranging.  He 
knew  she  lived  by  herself  and  had  been  angling  for  an  invi- 
tation to  come  to  see  her,  alone.  Finally,  he  telephoned 

315 


316  MARY  WOLLASTON 

her  office  one  day  and  asked  point-blank  if  he  mightn't 
come  to  tea  that  afternoon.  She  said  he  might  without  tell- 
ing him  that  she  was  expecting  Christabel  Baldwin  at  the 
same  time.  An  hour  later,  a  restless  hour  it  had  been,  she 
had  telephoned  Christabel  and  put  her  off  so  that  when  her 
other  guest  came  he  found  just  what  he  had  expected.  In 
the  manner  of  one  sure  of  his  welcome  and  intent  on  wast- 
ing no  time,  he  had  begun  making  love  to  her  (she  apolo- 
gized for  the  employment  of  that  phrase  but  said  she  knew 
no  other  that  was  usable).  She  admitted  that  she  had  never 
had  any  real  doubt  that  this  was  what  he  had  meant  to  do 
and  conceded  him  the  right  to  think  that  she  had  invited  it. 
But  she  found  it,  nevertheless,  unendurable.  She  felt  un- 
speakably degraded  by  it  and  presently  flew  into  a  rage  and 
turned  the  man  out  of  the  house,  feeling,  she  added,  as  much 
ashamed  of  that  part  of  the  performance  as  of  anything  else. 

This  encounter,  she  told  March,  made  a  profound  change 
in  her  feeling  about  the  other  episode — closed  a  door  upon 
it.  Nothing  like  that  could  happen  to  her  again.  She  sim- 
ply stopped  thinking  about  it  after  that,  buried  it  and  it  had 
stayed  buried  comfortably  for  the  better  part  of  a  year,  until 
Rush  came  home  from  France.  At  least  she  wasn't  aware 
that  it  had  troubled  her.  The  twinges  of  discomfort  she'd 
felt  whenever  she'd  faced  the  prospect  of  coming  home,  she 
had  attributed  to  another  cause  altogether. 

"Paula,"  he  observed.    "That's  easy  enough  to  see." 

"Oh,  you  are  a  comfort,"  she  said ;  "only  not  Paula  by 
herself.  Paula  and  father  and  I,  in  a  sort  of  awkward  tri- 
angle, all  doing  our  best  and  all  nagging  one  another.  That 
has  got  terribly  worse  in  the  last  few  days." 

She  seemed  to  find  no  difficulty  at  all  in  informing  him 
fully  about  this  home  situation;  needed  only  a  question  or 
surmise  dropped  here  and  there  to  develop  the  whole  story. 

It  wasn't  a  chronological  narrative.    Her  mind  drifted 


DAYBREAK  317 

like  a  soaring  kingfisher  over  the  whole  area  between  her 
childhood  and  the  events  of  this  very  morning,  swooping 
down  here  or  there  to  pick  up  some  incident  wherever  a 
gleam  of  memory  attracted  her. 

Her  spirit  was  finding  compensation  for  the  agonies  of 
the  past  hours  in  a  complete  detachment.  Nothing  she  told 
him,  no  matter  how  close  home  it  came,  seemed  to  involve 
any  painful  emotion.  Her  body,  pressed  so  close  against 
his  that  he  could  have  felt  the  faintest  muscle  quiver,  con- 
veyed no  message  to  him  but  the  relaxation  of  complete 
security. 

About  himself  there  was  a  curious  duality.  One  of  him 
was  lulled  irresistibly  into  sharing  her  mood  of  serene  de- 
tachment. The  other,  recognizing  the  transitoriness  of  hers, 
knowing  that  when  this  interlude  came  to  an  end,  as  come 
it  must,  the  storm  would  break  upon  them  once  more,  was 
casting  about  desperately  for  the  means  of  saving  her. 

He  had  come  to  see  the  situation  with  her  own  eyes, 
fairly  felt  the  clutch  of  it  upon  his  own  heart.  She  or  some 
impish  power  acting  through  her  agency  had  certainly  made 
a  mess  of  things.  Her  father's  happiness  destroyed;  Rush's 
partnership  broken;  and  the  whole  Hickory  Hill  project 
ruined  unless  some  one  could  be  found  to  buy  into  it  in 
Graham's  place;  Graham  humiliated,  utterly  cast  adrift, 
irreparably  hurt.  And  the  prospect  for  the  future.  .  .  . 

She  had  told  him  of  her  tramp  about  the  streets  yester- 
day with  her  newspaper  clipping  and  he  was  able  to  feel  the 
full  terror  of  it ;  and,  beyond  the  terror,  the  gray  emptiness. 

There  was  only  one  way  out  of  the  tangle  and  this  was 
to  marry  the  man  she  loved  and  knew  loved  her.  Well,  he 
knew  with  merciless  certainty  what  her  answer  would  be 
when  he  asked  her — begged  her — to  do  that.  He  had  pro- 
vided her  with  the  answer  himself,  with  his  sophomoric  talk 
about  traveling  light  and  refusing  to  wear  harness.  And 


318  MARY  WOLLASTON 

he'd  worse  than  talked.  His  flight  from  her  at  Hickory 
Hill  was  enough  to  show  that  these  weren't  mere  empty 
phrases.  And  yet  her  life  depended  to-night  upon  his  abil- 
ity to  persuade  her,  in  the  face  of  those  phrases  and  that 
fact,  to  marry  him.  So  he  sat  very  still,  wondering  how 
soon  she  would  divine  these  undercurrents  of  his  thought, 
listening  while  she  talked  to  him. 

The  hours  were  slipping  away,  too.  A  glance  at  the 
watch  braceleted  upon  the  wrist  he  held  startled  him  and  he 
covered  it  with  his  hand.  Had  they  already,  he  wondered, 
begun  a  search  for  her?  Her  words  supplied  presently  the 
answer  to  that  question.  She  was  talking,  with  a  dry  sort 
of  humor,  about  the  commotions  of  that  day. 

He  could  not  be  sure  he  was  getting  it  quite  straight,  for 
she  was  commenting  upon  events  rather  than  narrating 
them.  Apparently  she  had  telephoned  to  her  brother  at 
Hood's  apartment  immediately  after  young  Stannard  left  the 
house  the  evening  or  afternoon  before,  telling  him  not  to 
bother  about  her,  as  she  was  going  straight  to  bed.  Let  him 
go  to  a  show  and  be  careful  not  to  wake  her  when  he  came 
in.  She'd  done  this  and  gone  to  sleep  at  once,  not  waking 
until  she'd  heard  him  getting  ready  for  bed  in  the  adjoining 
room.  But  after  that  she  hadn't  been  able  to  get  off  again. 

March  reflected,  with  a  sudder,  what  a  ghastly  proces- 
sion of  hours  those  must  have  been.  Had  it  been  then,  he 
wondered,  that,  looking  for  some  harmless  thing  to  help  her 
sleep,  she  had  come  upon  the  deadlier  stuff? 

Her  encounter  with  her  brother  at  breakfast,  which  she 
had  prepared,  was  their  first,  it  seemed,  since  her  visit  to 
Hickory  Hill  and  Rush  had  been  shocked  at  her  wan,  life- 
less appearance.  He'd  guessed,  of  course,  that  his  friend's 
suit  hadn't  prospered  and  now  took  the  line,  which  no 
doubt  seemed  to  him  the  most  tactful  and  comforting  one 
available,  that  she  was  too  ill  to  attempt  any  final  decision  on 


DAYBREAK  319 

such  a  subject  just  now  and  that  things  would  look  different 
when  better  health  had  driven  morbid  thoughts  away. 

Her  vehemence  in  trying  to  convince  him  that  she  had 
acted  finally  in  the  matter,  that  Graham  now  acquiesced 
fully  in  her  decision  and  no  longer  wanted  to  marry  her,  and 
that  Rush  must  let  him  alone — not  even  try  to  talk  with  him 
about  it — had  only  made  him  the  more  confident  in  his 
diagnosis. 

It  must  have  been  pat  in  the  middle  of  this  scene  that 
Graham's  midnight-written  letter  arrived.  Rush's  attitude 
toward  his  partner's  flight — after  the  first  moments  of  mere 
incredulity — had  been  one  of  contemptuous  irritation,  the 
natural  attitude  for  any  young  man  who  sees  a  comrade  tak- 
ing no  more  of  a  matter  than  a  disappointment  in  love  with 
an  evident  lack  of  fortitude.  This  was  heightened,  too,  by 
a  rapidly  developed  sense  of  personal  grievance.  What  the 
devil  did  Graham  think  was  going  to  happen  to  him  with 
Hickory  Hill  left  on  his  hands  like  that?  There  was  more 
than  enough  work  for  the  two  of  them.  And  then  the  finan- 
cial aspect  of  it !  Mr.  Stannard,  who  had  just  been  brought 
to  the  point  of  loosening  up  and  letting  them  have  a  little 
more  money,  would  of  course  leave  Rush  to  his  fate.  If 
he  did't  call  his  loans  and  sell  him  out!  Ruin  them  alto- 
gether! Graham  must  simply  be  found  and  dragged  back 
before  his  father  learned  of  his  flight. 

He  couldn't  have  been  paying  his  sister  much  attention 
while  he  ran  on  like  that!  Unwisely,  perhaps,  but  inevi- 
tably, Mary  attempted  to  defend  the  fugitive — in  the  only 
way  she  thought  of  as  possible;  namely,  by  showing  her 
brother  what  the  true  situation  was. 

She  didn't  try  to  tell  March  what  she  said.  The  thing 
which,  with  a  forlorn  smile,  she  dwelt  upon,  was  the 
terrified  vehemence  with  which  Rush  had  stopped  her  at  his 
first  inkling  of  what  she  was  trying  to  make  him  see.  She 


320  MARY  WOLLASTON 

was  simply  out  of  her  head.  A  bad  case,  he  pronounced,  of 
neurasthenia.  Her  having  set  out  yesterday  to  find  a  job 
should  have  made  that  plain  enough.  What  she  needed  was 
a  nurse  and  a  doctor — and  he  meant  to  provide  both  within 
the  next  few  hours.  He  then  compromised  by  saying  that 
the  nurse  he  had  in  mind  was  for  the  moment  Aunt  Lucile 
and  the  doctor  their  father. 

With  an  alternation  of  truculence  and  cajolery,  he  had 
got  her  to  lie  down  and  to  promise  not  to  talk — that  was  the 
important  thing — and  this  accomplished  he  devoted  half  an 
hour  to  the  composition  of  a  note  to  Miss  Wollaston  (whom 
it  was  difficult  to  tell  anything  to  over  the  telephone,  par- 
ticularly with  long  distance  rural  connections)  which  he 
despatched,  in  charge  of  Pete,  in  the  big  car.  Pete  would 
get  back  with  her  by  three  at  the  latest. 

Rush  then  had  a  long  talk  by  telephone  with  his  father 
at  Ravinia.  Mary  didn't  know,  of  course,  what  they 
had  said,  beyond  that  John  had  promised  to  come  down  im- 
mediately after  lunch,  but  she  got  the  idea  that  the  profes- 
sional medical  attitude  had  been  one  of  less  alarm  than  the 
amateur  one.  Mary  confessed  to  March,  with  a  flicker  of 
ironic  amusement,  that  she  had  supported  this  lighter  view 
so  successfully  that,  a  little  before  noon,  Rush  had  con- 
fided to  her  his  wish — if  she  were  perfectly  sure  she  didn't 
need  him — to  take  the  one  o'clock  train  to  Lake  Geneva. 
He  and  Graham  were  still  expected  there  for  the  week-end 
and  on  a  good  many  accounts  it  would  be  well  if  he  didn't 
fail  them.  He  dreaded  going,  of  course,  but  he  felt 
he  could  meet  the  situation  better  on  the  ground  whatever 
turned  up.  He  could  wait  for  the  three  o'clock  train,  but 
this  was  the  one  Mr.  Stannard  always  took  and  he'd  like  to 
get  in  a  talk  with  Sylvia  first.  She  was  a  great  pal  of  her 
brother's  and  might  well  have  some  real  information  about 
him.  He'd  have  Pete's  wife  come  in  and  look  after 


DAYBREAK  321 

Mary — get  lunch  and  so  on.  And  father  would  be  down 
about  two. 

March  thought  the  forlorn  smile  with  which  she  told 
him  this  the  most  heart-breaking  thing  he  had  ever  seen. 
Damn  Rush!  Damn  all  the  sentimentalists  in  the  world. 
Dressing  up  their  desires  in  altruistic  clothes.  Loving  them- 
selves in  a  lot  of  crooked  mirrors ! 

The  rest  of  the  story  told  itself  in  very  few  words. 
John  Wollaston  telephoned,  about  three,  from  Ravinia, 
to  say  that  Paula  wasn't  well — meant  to  sing  to-night 
as  she  was  billed  to  do  (she  took  great  pride  in  never  dis- 
appointing her  audiences) — but  very  much  wanted  him  at 
hand  through  the  ordeal.  If  Mary  was  feeling  as  much 
better  as  her  voice  sounded  would  she  mind  his  not  coming 
until  to-morrow  morning. 

She'd  assured  him,  of  course,  that  she  wouldn't  mind  a 
bit.  Aunt  Lucile  hadn't  arrived  yet  but  she  would  be  com- 
ing any  minute  now.  Rush  had  been  making  a  great  fuss 
about  nothing,  anyway.  She  did  not  volunteer  the  infor- 
mation that  Rush  had  already  gone  to  Lake  Geneva. 

At  five  o'clock  a  telegram,  addressed  to  Rush,  had  come 
from  Miss  Wollaston.  Pete  had  broken  one  of  the  springs 
of  the  big  car  and  had  had  to  go  to  Durham  for  another. 
She  hoped  Rush  and  his  father  would  be  able  to  take  care 
of  Mary  until  to-morrow  morning  when  she  would  arrive 
with  one  of  the  servants  and  take  charge. 

That  cleared  the  board.  To-morrow  they  would  descend 
upon  her  with  their  fussy  attentions,  their  medical  solemni- 
ties, their  farcical  search  for  something — for  anything  except 
the  truth  they  wouldn't  let  her  tell — to  account  for  her  nerv- 
ous breakdown.  But  for  a  dozen  hours  she  was,  miracu- 
lously, to  be  let  alone,  with  blessed  open  spaces  round  her. 
No  need  for  any  frantic  haste.  Plenty  of  tkne.  The  whole 
of  that  hot  still  summer  night. 


322  MARY  WOLLASTON 

And  then,  at  six  o'clock,  a  man  named  James  Wallace 
had  telephoned!  And  Jennie  MacArthur  had  decided  to 
drop  in  that  evening  for  a  visit  with  Sarah !  Fate  had  played 
its  part;  given  March  his  chance. 

"So  that's  why  you  decided  to  go  away,"  he  said. 

He  had  been  nerving  himself  during  a  long  slow  silence 
for  that.  He  could  almost  as  easily  have  struck  her  a  blow, 
and  indeed  the  effect  of  it  was  precisely  that.  But  though 
she  tried  to  shrink  away  he  held  her  tighter  and  went  on. 
"I  don't  believe  there's  anything  in  the  whole  picture  now 
that  I  don't  see  and  understand.  But — but  the  way  out 
.  .  .  Oh,  Mary  darling,  it  isn't  the  one  you  are  trying  to 
take.  There's  happiness  for  both  of  us  if  you'll  take  the 
other  way — with  me." 

She  was  struggling  now  to  get  free  from  his  hands. 
"No!"  she  gasped  wildly.  "I  won't  do  that.  I'll  do  any- 
thing— anything  else  rather  than  that.  Let  me  go  now." 

But  he  held  her  fast.  Presently  she  relaxed  and  lay  back 
panting  in  her  chair.  "Won't  you  please  let  me  go?"  she 
pleaded.  "You  haven't  understood  at  all  if  you  don't  see 
that  you  must.  Oh,  but  you  do  understand !  You've  com- 
forted me  ...  I  didn't  think  there  could  be  any  com- 
fort like  that.  Let  me  go  now — in  peace.  Don't  ask  the 
other.  I've  spoiled  things  for  everybody  else,  but  I  won't 
for  you.  I  couldn't  endure  that" 

All  the  pleas,  the  arguments,  the  convincing  phrases 
which  he  had  been  mustering  while  she  talked  to  him  so  con- 
tentedly, to  convince  her  of  the  truth,  the  blinding  truth  that 
he  wanted  her  now  for  his  wife,  that  life  no  longer  seemed 
a  possible  thing  for  him  upon  any  other  terms — all  that 
feeble  scaffolding  of  words  was,  to  his  despair,  swept  now 
clean  away  in  the  very  torrent  of  his  passion.  He  could 
do  nothing  for  a  while  but  go  on  holding  her.  At  last, 
[words  burst  from  him. 


DAYBREAK  323 

"I  won't  let  you  go.  Not  alone.  Wherever  you  go, 
I'll  go  with  you." 

She  looked  up,  staring  into  his  face  and  he  saw  an  in- 
credulous surmise  deepen  into  certainty.  She  had  seen, 
heard  in  that  cry  of  his,  the  truth — that  he  understood  what 
she  meant  to  do.  Then  her  face  contorted  itself  like  a 
child's,  ineffectually  struggling  to  keep  back  tears,  and  she 
broke  down,  weeping. 

That  broke  the  spell  that  had  fallen  upon  him.  He  took 
her  up,  carried  her  over  to  the  big  armchair  and  sat  down 
with  her  in  his  arms. 

His  own  terror,  which  had  never  more  than  momentarily 
receded  since  she  had  first  spoken  to  him  from  the  doorway, 
was,  he  realized,  gone ;  replaced  by  an  inexplicable  thrilling 
confidence  that  he  had  won  his  victory.  He  didn't  speak  a 
word. 

The  tempest  was  soon  spent.  It  was  a  matter  only  of 
minutes  before  the  sobbing  ceased.  But  for  a  long  while 
after  she  was  quiet,  all  muscles  relaxed,  she  lay  just  as  he 
held  her,  a  soft  dead  weight  like  a  sleeping  child.  He  won- 
dered, indeed,  if  she  had  not  fallen  asleep  and  finally  moved 
his  head  so  that  he  could  see  her  eyes.  They  were  open, 
though,  and  at  that  movement  of  his  she  stirred,  sighed  and 
sat  erect. 

"I  think  I  would  have  dropped  off  in  another  minute," 
she  said.  Then  she  put  her  hands  upon  his  shoulders.  "I 
won't  do  that.  I  promise,  solemnly,  I  won't  do  what — what 
we  both  thought  I  meant  to  do.  I  don't  believe  I  could  now, 
anyway.  Now  that  the  nightmare  is  gone." 

She  smiled  then  and  bent  down  and  kissed  him.  "But  I 
won't  do  the  other  thing  either,  my  dear.  I'll  find  some 
other  way.  Really  go  to  Omaha  perhaps.  But  I  won't 
marry  you.  You  see  why,  don't  you?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  he  said.    "I  can  tell  you  exactly  why.    You 


324  MARY  WOLLASTON 

don't  want  to  take  away  my  freedom.  You  want  me  to  be 
a  sort  of — what  was  that  opera  you  spoke  about  at  Hickory 
Hill? — Chemiiieau.  Doing  nothing  but  what  I  please.  Wan- 
dering off  wherever  I  like."  He  smiled.  "Mary,  dear,  do 
you  realize  that  you're  proposing  to  deal  with  me  exactly  as 
Graham  Stannard  would  have  dealt  with  you?  Trying  to 
make  an  image  of  me  ?" 

She  started  from  his  knees,  retreated  a  pace  or  two  and 
turned  and  confronted  him. 

"That's  not  true,"  she  protested.  "That  can't  possibly 
be  true!" 

He  did  not  answer.  He  had  plenty  of  arguments  with 
which  to  establish  the  parallel,  his  mind  was  aflame  with 
phrases  in  which  to  plead  his  cause  with  her.  Somehow  they 
wouldn't  come  to  his  tongue.  It  didn't  occur  to  him  that 
fatigue  had  anything  to  do  with  this.  He  was  filled  with  a 
sudden  fury  that  he  could  not  talk  to  her. 

She  had  turned  away,  restlessly,  and  moved  to  one  of 
the  dormer  windows.  Following  her  with  his  eyes  he  saw 
the  dawn  coming. 

He  rose  stiffly  from  his  chair.  "I  guess  I  had  better 
take  you  home  now,"  he  said. 

She  nodded  and  got  her  hat.  When  he  found  her  at  the 
door  after  he  had  put  out  the  lamp  she  clung  to  him  for  a 
moment  in  the  dark  and  he  thought  she  meant  to  speak, 
but  she  did  not. 

He  helped  her  down  the  irregular  shaky  stair  and  then, 
along  the  gray  cool  empty  street  he  walked  with  her  toward 
the  brightened  sky. 

She  said,  at  last.  "Graham  wouldn't  let  me  tell  him 
what  the  real  me  was  like.  Tell  me  the  truth  about  the 
real  you." 

"There  isn't  much  to  tell.  I  guess  I'm  pretty  much  like 
any  one  else  when  it  comes  down  to — to  .  *  .  I  don't 


DAYBREAK  325 

want  to  go  on,  alone.  I  want  to  be  woven  in  with  you.  I 
want  .  .  ." 

He  stood  still  in  a  vain  effort  to  make  the  words  come. 
"I  can't  talk !"  he  cried,  and  his  voice  broke  in  a  sob. 

"You  needn't,"  she  said;  and  pressing  his  hand  against 
her  breast  she  led  him  on  again.  She  was  trembling  and  her 
hand  was  cold. 

Nothing  more  was  said  between  them,  all  the  way.  But 
when  they  reached  her  door  and  managed  to  open  it  she 
stood  for  a  moment  peering  through  the  dusk  into  his  face. 

"If  it's  true  .  .  ."  she  said.  "If  you  really  want  a 
home  and  a  wife — like  me  ...  Oh,  yes,  I  know  it's 
true!" 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

JOHN  ARRIVES 

TWO  or  three  hours  after  March  and  Mary  came  to  the 
Dearborn  Avenue  house  that  Sunday  morning,  a  little 
before  eight  o'clock  to  be  precise,  John  Wollaston,  deterred 
by  humane  considerations  from  ringing  the  door-bell,  tried 
his  latch-key  first  and  found  it  sufficient.  Rather  surprisingly 
since  his  sister  was  particular  about  bolts  and  chains.  But 
this  mild  sensation  was  engulfed  the  next  moment  in  clear 
astonishment  when  he  encountered  in  the  drawing-room 
doorway,  Anthony  March. 

The  piano  tuner  was  coatless  and  in  his  socks.  Evidently 
it  was  no  less  recent  an  event  than  the  sound  of  the  latch- 
key which  had  roused  him  from  sleep. 

"Oh,"  he  said.  "It's  you,  sir."  And  added  as  he  came  a 
little  wider  awake,  "I'm  very  glad  you've  come." 

John  detected  a  reservation  of  some  sort  in  this  after- 
thought; faintly  ironic  perhaps.  There  was,  at  any  rate,  a 
conspicuous  absence  of  any  implication  that  his  presence  was 
urgently  needed  just  then,  or  eagerly  waited  for. 

He  replied  with  an  irony  a  little  more  marked,  "It's  an 
unexpected  pleasure  to  find  you  here.  They're  wanting  you 
rather  badly  up  at  Ravinia  these  days,  I  understand." 

March  nodded,  cast  a  glance  in  the  direction  of  the 
stairs  and  led  the  way  decisively  into  the  drawing-room. 
His  pantomime  made  it  clear  that  he  did  not  wish  the  rest 
of  the  slumbering  household  aroused.  Considerate  of  him, 
of  course,  and  all  that,  but  the  decisiveness  of  the  action — 
as  if  he  somehow  felt  himself  in  charge,  despite  the  arrival 
of  his  host — roused  in  John  a  faint  hostility. 

326 


JOHN  ARRIVES  327 

He  followed  nevertheless.  He  saw  at  once  where  his 
unaccountable  visitor  had  made  his  bed.  A  big  cane  daven- 
port had  been  dragged  into  the  bay  window,  its  velvet 
cushions  neatly  stacked  on  the  piano  bench,  and  the  com- 
poser's coat,  rolled  with  his  deftness  of  experience,  had 
served  him  for  a  pillow.  Not  a  bad  bed  for  such  a  night  as 
this  that  John  himself  had  sweltered  through  so  unsuccess- 
fully. Probably  the  coolest  place  in  the  house,  right  by 
those  open  south  windows.  But  all  the  same  .  .  . 

"Couldn't  Rush  do  better  for  you  than  that?"  he  said. 
"There  must  be  a  dozen  beds  in  the  house." 

"Rush  isn't  here,"  March  answered.  "I  believe  he  went 
to  Lake  Geneva  yesterday,  for  over  Sunday." 

John  Wollaston  felt  the  blood  come  up  into  his  face  as 
the  conviction  sprang  into  his  mind  that  Lucile  wasn't  here, 
either.  She'd  never  have  left  the  front  door  unbolted. 
She'd  never  have  permitted  a  guest,  however  explicit  his 
preferences,  to  sleep  upon  the  cane  davenport  in  the  draw- 
ing-room with  his  coat  for  a  pillow. 

It  was  as  if  March  had  followed  his  train  of  thought 
step  by  step. 

"Miss  Wollaston  isn't  here  either,"  he  said.  "She  was 
detained  by  a  broken  spring  in  the  car.  I  believe  she  ex- 
pects to  arrive  this  morning." 

A  faint  amusement  showed  in  his  face  and  presently 
brightened  into  a  smile.  "I'm  really  very  relieved,"  he 
added,  "that  it  was  you  who  got  here  first." 

And  then  the  smile  vanished  and  his  voice  took  a  new 
timbre,  not  of  challenge,  certainly  not  of  defiance,  but  all 
the  more  for  that  of  authority.  "The  only  other  person 
in  the  house  is  Mary." 

A  sudden  weakness  of  the  legs  caused  John  to  seat  him- 
self, with  what  appearance  of  deliberation  he  could  manage, 
in  the  nearest  chair.  March,  however,  remained  on  his  feet. 


328  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"I  brought  her  home  last  night,"  he  went  on,  "very  late—- 
early this  morning  rather — with  the  intention  of  leaving  her 
here  alone.  But  I  decided  to  stay.  Also  it  was  her  prefer- 
ence that  I  should.  I  suspect  she's  asleep.  She  promised, 
at  least,  to  call  me  if  she  didn't." 

That,  apparently,  finished  for  the  present  what  he  had 
to  say.  He  turned — it  really  was  rather  gentle  the  way  he 
disengaged  himself  from  the  fixity  of  John's  look, — replaced 
the  cushions  on  the  cane  davenport ;  and  then,  seating  him- 
self, began  putting  on  his  shoes. 

Precisely  that  gentleness,  though  it  checked  on  John's 
tongue  the  angry  question,  "What  the  devil  were  you  doing 
with  her  until  early  this  morning?"  only  added  to  his  anger 
by  depriving  it  of  a  target.  For  a  minute  he  sat  inarticulate, 
boiling. 

It  was  an  outrageous  piece  of  slacking  on  Rush's  part 
that  he  should  have  deserted  his  sister  before  the  arrival  of 
one  or  the  other  of  his  promised  reenforcements  relieved 
him  of  his  duty.  It  was  inexcusable  of  Lucile  to  let  a  trivial 
matter  like  a  broken  spring  keep  her  at  Hickory  Hill.  There 
were  plenty  of  trains,  weren't  there?  And  the  third  rail 
every  hour?  It  was  shockingly  disengenuous  of  Mary,  when 
she  talked  with  him  over  the  telephone  yesterday  afternoon, 
to  have  suppressed  the  essential  fact  that  Rush  had  already 
deserted  her  and  that  she  was  at  that  moment  alone. 

And  then  his  anger  turned  upon  himself,  as  a  voice 
within  him  asked  whether,  on  his  conscience,  he  could  affirm 
that  this  knowedge  would  have  made  a  difference  in  his  own 
actions.  Could  he  be  sure  he  wouldn't  have  clutched  at  the 
assurance  that  his  sister  was  already  on  the  way  rather 
than  have  exacerbated  his  quarrel  with  Paula  by  doing  the 
one  thing  that  would  annoy  her  most. 

Laboriously  he  got  himself  together,  steadied  himself. 
"You  mustn't  think,"  he  said,  "that  I'm  not  grateful.  We're 


JOHN  ARRIVES  329 

all  grateful,  of  course,  to  you  for  having  done  what  our 
combined  negligence  appears  to  have  made  necessary."  Then 
his  voice  hardened  and  the  ring  of  anger  crept  into  it  as  he 
added,  "You  may  be  sure  that  nothing  of  the  sort  will  oc- 
cur again." 

"No,"  March  said  dryly.  "It  won't  occur  again."  He 
straightened  up  and  faced  John  Wollaston  squarely.  "I've 
persuaded  Mary  to  marry  me,"  he  said. 

"To  marry — you!"  John  echoed  blankly.  For  a  mo- 
ment before  his  mind  began  to  work,  he  merely  stared.  The 
first  thought  that  struggled  through  was  a  reluctant 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  there  was  a  sort  of  dignity 
in  the  man  which  not  even  the  stale  look,  inevitable  about 
one  who  has  just  slept  in  his  clothes,  could  overcome. 
No  more  than  his  pallor  and  the  lines  of  fatigue  deeply 
marked  in  his  face  could  impeach  his  air  of  authority.  There 
was  something  to  him  not  quite  accountable  under  any  of 
the  categories  John  was  in  the  habit  of  applying.  So  much 
John  had  conceded  from  the  first;  from  that  morning  in 
this  very  room  when  he  had  found  him  tuning  the  Circas- 
sian grand  and  had  gone  away,  shutting  the  door  over  yon- 
der, so  that  Paula  shouldn't  hear. 

But  that  Mary  should  seriously  contemplate  marrying 
him!  Mary!  Good  God! 

Once  more  March  disengaged  himself  from  John's  fixed 
gaze.  Not  at  all  as  if  he  couldn't  support  it ;  gently  again, 
by  way  of  giving  the  older  man  time  to  recover  from  his 
astonishment.  He  went  into  the  bay  and  stood  looking  out 
the  window  into  the  bright  hot  empty  street.  From  where 
he  sat  John  could  see  his  face  in  profile.  He  certainly  was 
damned  cool  about  it. 

There  recurred  to  John's  mind,  a  moment  during  that 
day's  drive  he  had  taken  with  Mary,  down  South,  when  he 
had  leaped  to  the  wild  surmise  that  there  might  be  some- 


330  MARY  VVOLLASTON 

thing  between  those  two.  She'd  been  talking  about  the 
piano  tuner  with  what  struck  him  as  a  surprisingly  confident 
understanding. 

She  had  instantly,  he  remembered,  divined  his  thought 
and  as  swiftly  set  it  at  rest.  March  wasn't,  she  had  said,  a 
person  who  saved  himself  up  for  special  people.  He  was 
there  for  anybody,  like  a  public  drinking  fountain. 

But  had  she  been  ingenuous  in  making  that  reply  to  him  ? 
Had  he  really  been  in  her  confidence  about  the  man  ?  Ob- 
viously not.  The  only  encounter  between  them  that  he  had 
ever  heard  about  was  the  one  she  had  upon  that  day  de- 
scribed to  him.  And  Lucile  and  Rush  were  evidently  as 
completely  in  the  dark  about  the  affair  as  he  himself  had 
been.  Their  meetings,  their  numerous  meetings,  must  have 
been  clandestine.  That  Mary,  his  own  white  little  daughter, 
should  be  capable  of  an  affair  like  that ! 

Another  memory  flashed  into  his  mind.  The  evening 
of  that  same  day  when  she  had  tried  to  tell  him  why  she 
couldn't  marry  Graham.  She  wasn't,  she  had  said,  inno- 
cent enough  for  Graham;  she  wasn't  even  quite — good. 

The  horror  of  the  conclusion  he  seemed  to  be  drifting 
upon  literally,  for  a  moment,  nauseated  John  Wollaston. 
The  sweat  felt  cold  upon  his  forehead.  And  then,  white 
hot,  bracing  him  like  brandy,  a  wave  of  anger. 

Some  preliminary  move  toward  speaking  evidently 
caught  March's  ear,  for  he  turned  alertly  and  looked.  It 
was  one  of  the  oddest  experiences  John  Wollaston  had  ever 
had.  The  moment  he  met  March's  gaze,  the  whole  infernal 
pattern,  like  an  old-fashioned  set-piece  in  fireworks,  extin- 
guished itself  as  suddenly  as  it  had  flared.  There  was  some- 
thing indescribable  in  this  man's  face  that  simply  made  gro- 
tesque the  notion  that  he  could  be  a  blackguard.  John  felt 
himself  clutching  at  his  anger  to  keep  him  up  but  the  mo- 
mentary belief  which  had  fed  it  was  gone. 


JOHN  ARRIVES  331 

March's  face  darkened,  too.  "If  you  have  any  idea," 
he  said,  "that  I've  taken  any  advantage — or  attempted  to 
take  any  .  .  ." 

"No,"  John  said  quickly.  "I  don't  believe  anything  like 
that.  I  confess  there  was  a  moment  just  now  when  it  looked 
like  that;  when  I  couldn't  make  it  look  like  anything  else. 
It  is  still  quite  unaccountable  to  me.  That  explanation  is 
discarded — but  I'd  like  the  real  one." 

"I  don't  believe,"  March  said,  reflecting  over  it  for  a 
moment,  "that  there  is  any  explanation  I  could  give 
that  would  make  it  much  more  accountable.  We  love  each, 
other.  That  is  a  fact  that,  accountable  or  not,  we  both  had 
to  recognize  a  number  of  weeks  ago.  I  didn't  ask  her  to 
marry  me  until  last  night.  I  wouldn't  have  asked  her  then 
if  it  hadn't  become  clear  to  me  that  her  happiness  depended 
upon  it  as  much  as  mine  did.  When  she  was  able  to  see  that 
the  converse  was  also  true,  we — agreed  upon  it." 

"What  I  asked  for,"  John  said,  "was  an  explanation. 
What  you  have  offered  is  altogether  inadequate — if  it  can 
be  called  an  explanation  at  all."  He  wrenched  his  eyes 
away  from  March's  face.  "I've  liked  you,"  he  went  on, 
"I've  liked  you  despite  the  fact  that  I've  had  some  excuse 
for  entertaining  a  contradictory  feeling.  And  I  concede 
your  extraordinary  talents.  But  it  remains  true  that  you're 
not — the  sort  of  man  I'd  expect  my  daughter  to  marry.  Nor, 
unless  I  could  see  some  better  reason  than  I  see  now,  per- 
mit her  to  marry." 

This  was  further  than,  in  cool  blood,  he'd  have  gone. 
But  the  finding  of  a  stranger  here  in  his  own  place  (any 
man  would  have  been  a  stranger  when  it  came  as  close  as 
this  to  Mary)  professing  to  understand  her  needs,  to  see 
with  the  clear  eye  of  certainty  where  her  happiness  lay,  an- 
gered and  outraged  him.  The  more  for  an  irresistible  con- 
viction that  the  profession  was  true.  But  that  word  per- 


332  MARY  WOLLASTON 

mit  went  too  far.  He  wasn't  enough  of  an  old-fashioned 
parent  to  believe,  at  all  whole-heartedly,  that  Mary  was  his 
to  dispose  of. 

Again,  he  looked  up  at  the  man's  face,  braced  for  the 
retort  his  challenge  had  laid  him  open  to,  and  once  more 
the  expression  he  saw  there — a  thing  as  momentary  as  a 
shimmer  of  summer  lightning, — told  him  more  than  any- 
thing within  the  resources  of  rhetoric  could  have  effected. 
It  was  something  a  little  less  than  a  smile  that  flashed  across 
March's  face,  a  look  half  pitiful,  half  ironic.  It  told  John 
Wollaston  that  his  permission  was  not  needed.  Events  had 
got  beyond  him.  He  was  superseded. 

He  dropped  back  limp  in  his  chair.  March  seated  him- 
self, too,  and  leaned  forward,  his  elbows  on  his  knees,  his 
hands  clasped. 

"I  know  how  it  must  look  to  you,  sir,"  he  said  gravely. 
"Even  the  social  aspect  of  the  thing  in  the  narrowest  sense 
of  the  word  is  serious.  And  there  are  other  difficulties 
harder  to  get  over  than  that.  I  don't  think  I  minimize  any 
of  them.  And  I  don't  believe  that  Mary  does.  But  the  main 
thing  is  a  fact  that  can't  be  escaped.  If  w,e  face  that 
first  .  .  ." 

He  broke  off  there  for  a  moment  and  John  saw  him  grip 
his  hands  together.  It  was  with  a  visible  effort  that  he 
went  on. 

"One  of  the  things  Mary  said  last  night  was  that  senti- 
mentality was  the  crudest  thing  in  the  world.  It  caused 
more  tragedies,  she  said,  than  malice.  She  had  learned 
the  cruelty  of  it  by  experience.  It's  not  an  experience  she 
can  safely  go  through  again." 

It  was  in  an  automatic  effort  to  defead  himself  against 
the  conviction  he  felt  closing  down  up»a  him  that  John 
lashed  out  here  with  a  reply. 

"The  fact  you're  asking  me  to  face  is,  I  suppose,  that 


JOHN  ARRIVES  333 

you  two  have  discovered  you're  in  love  with  each  other  to  a 
degree  that  makes  all  other  considerations  negligible." 

"That's  not  quite  it,"  March  replied  patiently.  "A  part 
of  it  is,  that  it  would  have  been  just  as  impossible  for  Mary 
to  marry  Graham  Stannard  if  she  had  never  seen  me.  And 
if  she  could  forget  me  completely  it  would  still  be  impos- 
sible for  her  to  marry  any  one  else  like  him." 

John  didn't  follow  that  very  closely.  His  mind  was  still 
upon  the  last  sentence  of  March's  former  speech. 
"It's  not  an  experience  she  can  safely  go  through  again." 
What  did  he  mean  by  that?  How  much  did  he  mean  by 
that?  Would  John,  if  he  could,  plumb  the  full  depth  of 
that  meaning  ?  There  was;  no  use  fighting  any  longer. 

"The  simplest  way  of  stating  the  fact,  I  suppose,"  he 
said,  "is  that  you  two  mean  to  marry  and  that  you're  satis- 
fied that  your  reasons  for  making  the  decision  are  valid. 
Well,  if  Mary  corroborates  you,  as  I  have  no  doubt  she  will, 
I'll  face  that  fact  as  realistically  as  possible.  I'll  agree  not 
to,  as  you  put  it,  sentimentalize." 

Then  he  got  up  and  held  out  his  hand.  "I  mean  that  for 
a  better  welcome  that  it  sounds,"  he  concluded.  And  if 
there  was  no  real  feeling  of  kindliness  for  his  prospective 
son-in-law  behind  the  words,  there  was  what  came  to  the 
same  thing,  a  realization  that  this  feeling  was  bound  to  come 
in  time.  No  candid-minded  person  could  keep  alive,  for 
very  long,  a  grievance  against  Anthony  March. 

The  physician  in  him  spoke  automatically  while  their 
hands  were  gripped.  "Good  lord,  man!  You're  about  at 
the  end  of  your  rope.  Exhausted — that's  what  I  mean. 
How  long  is  it  since  you've  fed  ?" 

March  was  vague  about  this ;  wouldn't  be  drawn  into  the 
line  John  had  been  diverted  into.  He  answered  another 
question  or  two  of  the  same  tenor  with  half  his  mind  and 
finally  said — with  the  first  touch  of  impatience  he  had  be- 


334  MARY  WOLLASTON 

trayed,  "I'm  all  right!  That  can  wait.  There's  one  more 
thing  I  want  to  say  before  you  talk  to  Mary." 

He  seemed  grateful  for  John's  permission  to  sit  down 
again,  dropped  into  his  chair  in  a  way  that  suggested  he 
might  have  fallen  into  it  in  another  minute,  and  took  the 
time  he  visibly  needed  for  getting  his  wits  into  working 
order  again. 

"I  think  I  can  see  how  the  prospect  must  look  to  you," 
he  began.  "The  difficulties  and  objections  that  you  see  are, 
I  guess,  the  same  ones  that  appeared  to  me.  The  fact  that 
I'm  not  in  her  world,  at  all.  That  I've  never  even  tried  to 
succeed  nor  get  on,  nor  even  to  earn  a  decent  living.  And 
that,  however  hard  I  work  to  change  all  that,  it  will  only  be 
by  perfectly  extraordinary  luck  if  I  can  contrive  to  make  a 
life  for  her  that  will  be — externally  anywhere  near  as  good 
a  Kfe  as  the  one  she's  always  taken  for  granted. 

"It  won't  be  as  much  worse,  though,  as  you  are  likely  to 
think.  With  the  help  she'll  give  me  I  shall  be  able  to  earn 
a  decent  living.  Unless  that  opera  of  mine  fails — laugh- 
ably, and  I  don't  believe  it  will,  up  at  Ravinia,  it  will 
help  quite  a  lot.  Make  it  possible  for  me  to  get  some  pupils 
in  composition.  And  I  know  I  can  write  some  songs  that 
•will  be  publishable  and  singable — for  persons  who  aren't 
musicians  like  Paula.  I  did  write  two  or  three  for  the  boys 
in  Bordeaux  that  went  pretty  well.  That  sort  of  thing 
didn't  seem  worth  while  to  me  then  and  I  never  went  on 
with  it. 

"Oh,  you  know  how  I've  felt  about  it.  How  I've  talked 
about  traveling  light  and  not  letting  my  life  get  cluttered 
up.  But  that  isn't  really  the  thing  that's  changed.  I've 
never  been  willing  to  pay,  in  liberty  and  leisure,  for  things  I 
didn't  want.  The  only  difference  is  that  there's  something 
now  that  I  do  want.  And  I  shan't  shirk  paying  for  it.  J 
want  you  to  understand  that." 


JOHN  ARRIVES  335 

He  stressed  the  word  you  in  a  way  that  puzzled  John 
a  little,  but  what  he  went  on  to  say  after  a  moment's  hesita- 
tion made  his  meaning  clear. 

"That's  preliminary.  You'll  find  that  Mary's  misgiv- 
ings— she's  not  without  them  and  they  won't  be  easy  to 
overcome — aren't  the  same  as  ours.  Those  aren't 
the  things  that  she's  afraid  of.  She's  afraid  of  taking  my 
liberty  away  from  me.  She  won't  be  able  to  believe,  easily, 
that  my  old  vagabond  ways  have  lost  their  importance  for 
me;  that  they're  a  phase  I  can  afford  to  outgrow.  She's 
likely  to  think  I've  sacrificed  something  essential  in  going 
regularly  to  work,  giving  lessons,  writing  popular  songs.  Of 
course,  it  will  rest  mostly  with  me  to  satisfy  her  that  that 
isn't  true,  but  any  help  you  can  give  her  along  that  line,  I'll 
be  grateful  for.  Last  night  she  seemed  convinced — far 
enough  to  give  me  her  promise  but  .  .  ." 

Words  faded  away  there  into  an  uneasy  silence.  John, 
looking  intently  into  the  man's  face,  saw  him  wrestling,  he 
thought,  with  some  idea,  some  fear,  some  sort  of  nightmare 
horror  which  with  all  the  power  of  his  will  he  was  strug- 
gling not  to  give  access  to.  He  pressed  his  clenched  hands 
against  his  eyes. 

"What  is  it  ?"  John  asked  sharply.    "What's  the  matter?" 

"It's  nothing,"  March  said  between  his  teeth.  "She  prom- 
ised, as  I  said.  She  told  me  I  needn't  be  afraid."  Then  he 
came  to  his  feet  with  a  gesture  of  surrender.  "Will  you  let 
me  see  her?"  he  asked  John.  "Now.  Just  for  a  minute 
before  I  go." 

John,  by  that  time,  was  on  his  feet,  too,  staring.  "What 
do  you  mean,  man?  Afraid  of  what?  What  is  it  you're 
afraid  of?" 

March  didn't  answer  the  question  in  words,  but  for  a 
moment  he  met  her  father's  gaze  eye  to  eye  and  what  John 
saw  was  enough. 


336  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"Good  God!"  he  whispered.  "Why — why  didn't  you 
.  .  ."  Then  turning  swiftly  toward  the  door.  "Come 
along." 

"I'm  really  not  afraid,"  March  panted  as  he  followed 
him  up  the  stairs,  "because  of  her  promise.  It  was  just  a 
twinge." 

Her  door  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  which  led  to  the  music 
room  stood  wide  open,  but  both  men  came  to  an  involun- 
tary breathless  pause  outside  it.  Then  John  went  in, 
looked  for  a  brief  moment  at  the  figure  that  slept  so  gently 
in  the  narrow  little  bed,  gave  a  reassuring  nod  to  March 
who  had  hung  back  in  the  doorway,  a  nod  that  invited  him 
in;  then  turned  away  and  covered  his  face  with  his  hands 
just  for  one  steadying  instant  until  the  shock  of  that  abom- 
inable fear  should  pass  away. 

When  he  looked  again  March  stood  at  the  bedside  gaz- 
ing down  into  the  girl's  face.  It  was  as  if  his  presence  there 
were  palpable  to  her.  She  opened  her  eyes  sleepily,  smiled 
a  fleeting  contented  smile  and  held  up  her  arms  to  her 
lover.  He  smiled,  too,  and  bent  down  and  kissed  her. 
Then  as  the  arms  that  had  clasped  his  neck  slipped  down  he 
straightened,  nodded  to  John  and  went  back  to  the  door. 
John  followed  and  for  a  moment,  outside  the  room,  they 
talked  in  whispers. 

"I'm  going  home  now,"  March  said.  "To  my  father's 
house — not  the  other  place.  There's  a  telephone  there  if  she 
wants  me.  But  I'll  call  anyhow  before  I  go  to  Ravina  this 
afternoon." 

It  was  he,  this  time,  who  held  out  his  hand. 

"You  can  trust  her  with  me  in  the  meantime,  I  think," 
John  said  as  he  took  it,  but  the  irony  of  that  was  softened 
by  a  smile.  March  smiled,  too,  and  with  no  more  words 
went  away. 

Her  eyes  turned  upon  John  when  he  came  back  into  the 


JOHN  ARRIVES  337 

room,  wide  open  but  still  full  of  sleep.  When  he  stood 
once  more  beside  her  bed  a  pat  of  her  hand  invited  him  to 
sit  down  upon  the  edge  of  it. 

"He  really  was  here,  wasn't  he?"  she  asked.  "I  wasn't 
dreaming  ?" 

"No,  he  was  here,"  John  said. 

Her  eyelids  drooped  again.  "I'm  having  the  loveliest 
dreams,"  she  told  him.  "I  suppose  I  ought  to  be  waking 
up.  What  time  is  it?" 

"It's  still  very  early.  Only  about  half  past  eight.  Go 
back  to  sleep." 

"Have  you  had  breakfast?  Pete's  wife,  out  in  the 
garage,  will  come  in  and  get  it  for  you." 

"WTien  I  feel  like  breakfast,  I'll  see  to  it  that  I  get 
some,"  he  said,  rising. 

Once  more  she  roused  herself  a  little.  "Stay  here, 
then,  for  a  while,"  she  said.  "Pull  that  chair  up  close." 

When  he  had  planted  the  easy  chair  in  the  place  she  indi- 
cated and  seated  himself  in  it  she  gave  him  one  of  her  hands 
to  hold.  But  in  another  minute  she  was  fast  asleep. 

And  that,  you  know,  was  the  hottest,  most  intolerable 
sting  of  all.  He  was  sore,  of  course,  all  over.  He  had  been 
badly  battered  during  the  last  four  days.  Some  of  those 
moments  with  March  down-stairs  had  been  like  blows  from  a 
bludgeon.  But  his  daughter's  sleepy  attempt  to  concern  her- 
self about  his  breakfast  and  the  perfunctory  caress  of  that 
slack  unconscious  hand  had  the  effect  of  the  climax  of 
it  all. 

She'd  just  been  through  the  crisis  of  her  life.  She'd 
been  down  chin-deep  in  the  black  waters  of  tragedy  (he 
didn't  yet  know,  he  told  himself,  what  the  elements  of  the 
crisis  were  nor  the  poisonous  springs  of  the  tragedy)  and 
all  her  father  meant  to  her  was  a  domestic  responsibility, 
some  one  that  breakfast  must  be  provided  for ! 


338  MARY  WOLLASTON 

He  managed  to  control  his  release  of  her  hand  and  his 
rising  from  his  chair  so  that  these  actions  should  not  be  so 
brusk  as  to  waken  her  again  and,  leaving  the  room,  went 
down  to  his  own. 

That  was  the  way  with  children.  They  remained  a  part 
of  you  but  you  were  never  a  part  of  them.  Mary  having 
awakened  for  her  lover,  smiled  at  him,  been  reassured  by  his 
kiss,  had  been  content  to  drop  off  to  sleep  again.  Her  fa- 
ther didn't  matter.  Not  even  his  derelictions  mattered. 

He  had  been  derelict.  He  didn't  pretend  to  evade  that. 
He  could  have  forgiven  her  reproaches;  welcomed  them. 
But  thanks  to  March,  she  had  nothing  to  reproach  him  for. 
The  presence  of  a  man  she  had  known  a  matter  of  weeks 
obliterated  past  years  like  the  writing  on  a  child's  slate.  He 
tried  to  erect  an  active  resentment  against  the  composer. 
Didn't  all  his  troubles  go  back  to  the  day  the  man  had  come 
to  tune  the  drawing-room  piano?  First  Paula  and  then 
Mary. 

None  of  this  was  very  real  and  he  knew  it.  There  was 
an  underlying  stratum  of  his  consciousness  that  this  didn't 
get  down  to  at  all,  which,  when  it  managed  to  get  a  word 
in,  labeled  it  mere  petulance,  a  childish  attempt  to 
find  solace  for  his  hurts  in  building  up  a  grievance,  a  whole 
fortress  of  grievances  to  take  shelter  in  against  the  bom- 
bardment of  facts. 

Was  this  the  quality  of  his  bitter  four  days'  quarrel  with 
Paula?  Was  the  last  accusation  she  had  hurled  at  him  last 
night  before  she  shut  herself  in  her  room,  a  fact?  "Of 
course,  I'm  jealous  of  Mary,"  she  had  acknowledged  furi- 
ously when  he  charged  her  with  it.  "You  don't  care  any- 
thing about  me  except  for  your  pleasure.  Down  there  in 
Tryon,  when  you  didn't  want  that,  you  got  rid  of  me  and 
sent  for  Mary  instead.*  If  that  weren't  true,  you  wouldn't 


JOHN  ARRIVES  339 

have  been  so  anxious  all  these  years  that  I  shouldn't  have  a 
child." 

No,  that  wasn't  a  fact,  though  it  could  be  twisted  into 
looking  like  one.  If  he  had  refrained  from  urging  mother- 
hood upon  her,  if  he'd  given  her  the  benefit  of  his  special 
knowledge,  didn't  her  interest  in  her  career  as  a  singer 
establish  the  presumption  that  it  was  her  wish  rather  than 
his  that  they  were  following.  Had  she  ever  said  she'd  like 
to  have  a  baby  ?  Or  even  hinted  ? 

He  pulled  himself  up.  There  was  no  good  going  over 
that  again. 

He  bathed  and  shaved  and  dressed  himself  in  fresh 
clothes,  operations  which  had  been  perforce  omitted  at  the 
cottage  this  morning  in  favor  of  his  departure  without 
arousing  Paula.  (He'd  slept,  or  rather  lain  awake,  upon 
the  hammock  in  the  veranda.)  When  he  came  down-stairs 
he  found  Pete's  wife  already  in  the  kitchen,  gave  her  direc- 
tions about  his  breakfast  and  then  from  force  of  habit, 
thought  of  his  morning  paper.  The  delivery  of  it  had  been 
discontinued,  of  course,  for  the  months  the  house  was 
closed,  so  he  walked  down  to  Division  Street  to  get  one. 

He  had  got  his  mind  into  a  fairly  quiescent  state  by  then 
which  made  the  trick  it  played  when  he  first  caught  sight  of 
the  great  stacks  of  Tribunes  and  Heralds  on  the  corner 
news-stand  all  the  more  terrifying.  It  had  the  force  of  an 
hallucination;  as  if  in  the  head-lines  he  actually  saw  the 
word  suicide  in  thick  black  letters.  And  his  daughter's 
name  underneath. 

He  had  managed,  somehow,  to  evade  that  word;  to  re- 
frain from  putting  into  any  words  at  all  the  peril  Mary  had 
so  narrowly  escaped,  although  the  fact  had  hung,  undis- 
guised, between  him  and  March  during  the  moment  they 
stared  at  each  other  before  they  went  up-stairs  together.  It 
avenged  that  evasion  by  leaping  upon  him  now.  He  bought 


340  MARY  WOLLASTON 

his  paper  and  hurried  home  with  it  under  his  arm,  feeling  as 
if  it  might  still  contain  the  news  of  that  tragedy. 

Reacting  from  this  irrational  panic  he  tried  to  discount 
the  whole  thing.  March  hadn't  lied,  of  course,  but,  being  a 
lover,  he  had  exaggerated.  As  John  sat  over  his  breakfast 
he  got  to  feeling  quite  comfortable  about  this.  His  mind 
went  back  to  the  breakfast  he  had  had  with  Mary  at  Ravinia 
— breakfast  after  much  such  an  abominable  night  as  this 
last  had  been — the  breakfast  they  had  left  for  that  talk  under 
the  trees  beside  the  lake.  And  then  his  own  words  came 
back  and  stabbed  him. 

He  had  been  arguing  with  her  his  right  to  extinguish 
himself  if  he  chose.  He  had  said  he  had  no  religion  real 
enough  to  make  a  valid  denial  of  that  right.  It  was  a  ques- 
tion no  one  else  could  presume  to  decide.  How  much  more 
had  he  said  to  that  sensitive  nerve-drawn  child  of  his  ?  He 
remembered  how  white  she  had  gone  for  a  moment,  a  little 
later.  And  he  had  pretended  not  to  see!  Just  as  he  had 
been  pretending,  a  few  minutes  back,  to  doubt  the  reality 
of  the  peril  March  had  saved  her  from.  What  a  liar  he 
was! 

Sentimentality,  March  had  quoted  Mary  as  saying,  was 
the  crudest  thing  in  the  world.  John  stood  convicted  now 
of  that  cruelty  toward  his  daughter.  Was  he  guilty  of  it, 
also,  toward  his  wife?  Did  their  quarrel  boil  down  to  that? 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

SETTLING  PAULA 

ANTHONY  MARCH  might  deny  as  much  as  he 
pleased  that  he  was  "enough  of  an  Olympian  to 
laugh"  at  life's  ironies,  but  it  remained  true  that  his  God  had 
a  sense  of  humor  and  that  March  himself  appreciated  it. 
When,  well  within  that  same  twenty-four  hours,  a  third 
member  of  the  Wollaston  family  insisted  upon  telling  him 
her  troubles  and  asking  him  what  she'd  best  do  about  them, 
he  conceded  with  the  flicker  of  an  inward  grin  (not  at  all 
at  the  troubles  which  were  serious  enough  nor  at  their 
sufferer  who  was  in  despair),  that  the  great  Disposer,  hav- 
ing set  out  to  demolish  that  philosophy,  enjoyed  making  a 
thorough  job  of  it. 

It  was  about  four  o'clock  on  Sunday  afternoon  that  he 
came  to  Paula's  cottage  at  Ravinia  to  get  the  score 
to  The  Outcry.  The  maid  who  opened  the  door  informed 
him  that  her  mistress  wasn't  at  home,  but  when  he  told  her 
what  he  wanted,  and  she  had  gone  rather  dubiously  up-stairs 
to  see  about  it,  it  was  Paula  herself  who,  after  a  wait  of 
ten  minutes  or  so,  came  down  with  the  manuscript  in  her 
hand. 

He  was,  perhaps,  just  the  one  person  in  the  world  she'd 
have  come  down  to  see.  All  the  explanation  she  volunteered 
to  herself  was  that  he  didn't  matter.  It  didn't  matter,  this 
was  to  say,  if  he  did  perceive  that  she  had  been  crying  for 
days  and  days  and  looked  an  utter  wreck. 

And  then  his  errand  brought  her  a  touch  of  comfort. 
The  acceptance  of  The  Outcry  for  production  restored  the 
proprietary  feeling  she  once  had  had  about  it.  She  was  the 

341 


342  MARY  WOLLASTON 

discoverer  of  The  Outcry  and  if  you'd  asked  her  who  was 
responsible  for  the  revival  of  interest  in  it  and  for  the  fact 
that  it  was  now  to  be  produced,  I  think  she'd  have  told  you 
quite  honestly  that  she  was.  Hadn't  she  asked  them  all  to 
come  to  her  house  to  hear  it?  And  sung  the  part  of 
"Dolores"  herself  at  that  very  informal  audition? 

And  I'll  hazard  one  further  guess.  It  is  that  her  quarrel 
with  John  made  March's  opera  a  rather  pleasanter  thing 
to  dwell  on  a  little.  She  had  taken  it  up  in  defiance  of  his 
wish  in  the  first  place ;  her  abandonment  of  it  had  acquired 
from  its  context  the  color  of  a  self-sacrificial  impulse.  She 
would  carry  out  her  contract,  she  had  told  John  down  in 
Tryon,  but  she  wouldn't  sing  "Dolores"  for  anybody.  Well, 
now  that  her  love-life  with  John  was  irremediably  wrecked, 
there  was  a  sort  of  melancholy  satisfaction  in  handling,  once 
more,  the  thing  that  stood  as  the  innocent  symbol  of  the 
disaster. 

That's  neither  here  nor  there,  of  course.  Paula  was 
totally  unaware  of  any  such  constellation  about  her  simple 
act  of  deciding  to  carry  down  the  score  herself  instead  of 
handing  it  over  to  the  maid. 

The  sight  of  him  standing  over  the  piano  in  her  sitting- 
room  cheered  her  and  the  look  of  melancholy  she  brought 
down-stairs  with  her  was  replaced  by  a  spontaneous  unex- 
pected smile.  Just  as  Mary,  out  at  Hickory  Hill,  had  pre- 
dicted, she  remembered  how  well  she  liked  him.  She  laid 
the  manuscript  on  the  piano  in  order  to  give  him  both 
hands. 

"I  can't  tell  you  how  pleased  I  am  about  it,"  she  said. 
"I  wish  you  all  the  luck  in  the  world." 

He  brightened  responsively  at  that  but  looked,  she 
thought,  a  little  surprised,  too. 

"I  am  glad  you're  pleased  about  it,"  he  told  her.  "I 
wasn't  quite  sure  you'd  know.  Of  course,  they  telephoned." 


SETTLING  PAULA  343 

She  stepped  back,  puzzled.  "But  of  course  I  know!" 
she  said.  "Haven't  I  been  working  on  it  for  weeks !  Why, 
it  was  right  here  in  this  room  that  they  decided  on  it.  Days 
ago.  I've  been  trying  frantically  to  find  you  ever  since." 

"Oh,"  he  said,  "you  mean  The  Outcry.  I  thought  you 
were  congratulating  me  on  my  engagement  to  marry  Mary." 

She  stared  at  him  in  simple  blank  incredulity.  "To 
marry  Mary!  Mary  Wollaston?  You  don't  mean  that 
seriously?" 

"It's  the  only  serious  fact  in  the  world,"  he  assured  her. 

"But  John —    Does  John  know  about  it  ?"  she  demanded. 

"Yes,"  he  said. 

She  drew  a  long  breath,  then  pounced  upon  him  with 
another  question.  "Did  you  tell  him  about  it,  or  was  it 
Mary  who  did  ?" 

"It  was  I,"  March  said.  "I  was  the  first  one  to  see  him 
after  it  happened." 

"He  hadn't  suspected  anything,  had  he?"  she  persisted. 

She  was  vaguely  aware  that  he  was  a  little  puzzled  and 
perhaps  in  the  same  degree  amused  by  her  intensity,  but  she 
had  no  interest  in  half  tones  of  that  sort. 

When  he  answered  in  the  sense  she  expected,  "No,  I  can 
testify  to  that.  He  was  taken  completely  by  surprise  when 
I  broke  it  to  him ;"  she  heaved  another  long  breath,  turned 
away,  and  sat  down  heavily  in  the  nearest  chair. 

"Poor  old  John !"  she  said.  But  she  didn't  let  that  ex- 
clamation go  uninterpreted.  "I  didn't  mean  anything — per- 
sonal by  that,"  she  went  on.  "Only — only  I  didn't  think 
John  could  make  up  his  mind  to  let  her  marry — anybody." 
Then  in  a  rush — an  aside,  to  be  sure,  but  one  he  was  wel- 
come to  hear  if  he  chose. — "He  wanted  her  so  much  all  to 
himself." 

Whether  he  heard  it  or  not,  he  failed,  she  thought,  to 
attach  any  special  significance  to  that  last  comment  of  hers. 


344  MARY  WOLLASTON 

He  said  that  John  had  been  very  nice  about  it,  though  he 
was,  as  any  father  would  be  under  the  circumstances,  taken 
aback.  He  had  consented  to  regard  the  arrangement  as  an 
accomplished  fact  and  would,  March  hoped,  in  time  be 
fully  reconciled  to  it.  Then  he  went  back  rather  quickly 
to  the  matter  of  his  opera. 

"Of  course,  it  means  more  than  ever  to  me  now,"  he 
said,  putting  his  hand  on  the  manuscript,  "to  get  this  pro- 
duced. If  it  goes  moderately  well  it  will  help  in  a  good 
many  ways." 

She  found  some  difficulty  in  again  turning  her  mind 
to  this  theme  and  answered  absently  and  rather  at  ran- 
dom, until  she  perceived  that  he  was  getting  ready  to  take 
his  leave.  He  was  saying  something  about  an  appointment 
with  LaChaise. 

"Is  it  at  once?"  she  asked.  "Do  you  have  to  go  right 
away  ?" 

"I'm  to  have  dinner  with  him  and  his  secretary,  who  can 
talk  English,  at  six,"  March  said,  "but  I  thought  I'd  carry 
this  off  somewhere  and  read  it  before  I  talked  with  them. 
It's  been  a  long  way  out  of  my  mind  this  last  three  months." 

"Don't  go,"  Paula  said.  "It  seems  so — so  nice  to  have 
you  here.  Sit  down  and  read  your  score.  Then  you'll 
have  a  piano  handy  in  case  you  want  to  hear  anything." 
She  added  as  she  saw  him  hesitate,  "I  won't  bother  you — 
but  I'm  feeling  awfully  lonely  to-day." 

At  that,  of  course,  he  relinquished,  though  a  little  dubi- 
ously she  thought,  his  intention  to  go.  She  set  about  ener- 
getically making  matters  convenient  for  him,  cleared  a  small 
table  of  its  litter  and  set  it  in  the  window  where  he  would 
have  the  best  light;  chose  a  chair  for  him  to  sit  in;  urged 
him  to  take  off  his  coat ;  and  began  looking  about  for  some- 
thing for  him  to  smoke — but  not  quite  successfully.  Ske 
was  sure  there  were  cigarettes  of  Mary's  somewhere  about. 


SETTLING  PAULA  345 

He  didn't  care  to  smoke  just  now,  he  said.  If  he  felt 
later  like  resorting  to  a  pipe  he  would. 

Was  there  anything  else?  Didn't  he  want  a  pencil  and 
paper  to  make  notes  on?  No,  he  was  supplied  with  every- 
thing, he  said. 

But  for  all  the  ardor  of  these  preparations  of  hers,  she 
was  a  little  disconcerted  and  aggrieved  at  the  way  he  took 
her  at  her  word  and  plunged  into  the  study  of  his  score. 

She  found  herself  a  novel  and  managed,  for  five  minutes 
or  so,  to  pretend  to  read.  Then  she  flung  it  aside  and  drifted 
over  to  the  piano  bench  and  after  gazing  moodily  a  while 
at  the  keyboard,  began  in  a  fragmentary  way  to  play 
bits  of  nothing  that  came  into  her  head.  But  she  stopped 
herself  short  in  manifest  contrition  when,  happening  to  look 
around  at  him,  she  saw  a  knot  of  baffled  concentration  in  his 
forehead. 

"Of  course,  you  can't  read  if  I  do  that,"  she  said.  "I'm 
sorry."  Then  under  cover  of  the  same  interruption,  "How 
did  John  look  when  you  saw  him  this  morning?  Like  a 
wreck?  What  time  was  it,  anyway?  It  must  have  been 
frightfully  early  that  he  left  here  because  I  waked  as  soon 
as  it  was  really  light  and  he  was  gone  by  then." 

"I  don't  know  that  he  looked  particularly  a  wreck," 
March  said.  "Not  any  worse,  I  mean,  than  he  looked  out  at 
Hickory  Hill  the  day  you  opened  the  season  here." 

"He  didn't  say  anything  about  me,  did  he?"  she  asked. 

"No,"  March  said,  "I  don't  think  he  did." 

"I  suppose  you'd  remember  it  if  he'd  happened  to  tell 
you  that  he  loathed  and  hated  me  and  never  wanted  to  see 
me  again."  Then  she  rose  and  went  over  to  the  opposite 
side  of  his  little  table  and  leaning  down  spread  her  hands 
out  over  his  score. 

"Oh,  I  know  I  said  I  wouldn't  bother,  but  do  stop  think- 
ing about  this  and  talk  to  me  for  a  minute.  We're  having — 


346  MARY  WOLLASTON 

we're  having  a  perfectly  hideous  time.  He  and  I.  We've 
been  fighting  like  cat  and  dog  for  four  days.  I  don't  exactly 
know  what  it's  all  about,  except  that  it  seems  we  hate  each 
other  and  can't  go  on.  You've  got  to  tell  me  what  to  do. 
It  all  started  with  you  anyway.  With  the  time  you  brought 
around  those  Whitman  songs. — That  was  the  day  Mary 
came  home  from  New  York,  too,"  she  added. 

"All  right,"  he  said,  shutting  down  the  cover  upon  his 
manuscript,  "then  Mary  and  I  will  try  to  patch  you  up. 
That  is,  if  we  haven't  already  done  it." 

Her  face  darkened.  "Don't  try  to  talk  the  way  they  do," 
she  commanded.  "I'm  not  intelligent  enough  to  take  hints. 
Do  you  mean  that  the  whole  trouble  is  that  I'm  jealous  of 
Mary?  And  that  now  she's  going  to  marry  you  I'll  have 
nothing  to  be  jealous  of?  Well,  you're  wrong  both  ways. 
There's  more  to  it  than  that.  And  that  isn't  going  to  stop 
just  because  she's  marrying  you.  She'll  always  be  there 
for  him.  And  he'll  be  there  for  her.  You'll  find  that  out 
before  you've  gone  far." 

He  didn't  seem  disposed  to  dispute  this,  nor  to  be  much 
perturbed  about  it,  either.  He  annoyed  her  by  saying,  "Well, 
if  it's  a  permanent  fact,  like  snow  in  February,  what's  the 
good  of  taking  it  so  hard?" 

"You  can  go  south  in  February,"  she  retorted.  Then 
she  went  on,  "I  want  to  know  if  you  don't  think  I've  a  right 
to  be  jealous  of  her.  I'd  saved  his  life.  He  admitted  that. 
But  when  we  went  south,  afterward,  he  simply  didn't  want 
me  around.  Sent  me  home  pretending  I'd  be  wanted  for 
rehearsals.  And  then  he  sent  for  her.  They  spent  a  week 
together — talking!  As  far  as  that  goes,  they  could  have 
done  it  just  as  well  if  I'd  been  there.  They  can  talk  right 
over  my  head  and  I  never  know  what  it's  all  about.  Wait 
till  they  begin  doing  that  with  you!  I  don't  suppose  they 
will  though.  You're  a  talker,  too.  He  told  her  things  he'd 


SETTLING  PAULA  347 

never  told  me — about  his  money  troubles.  What  he  said 
to  me  was  that  he  didn't  want  to  stand  in  the  way  of  my 
career.  He  left  her  to  tell  me  the  truth  about  it,  later, — after 
I'd  told  him  I  didn't  want  any  career — though  I'd  just  been 
offered  the  best  chance  I  ever  had.  And  then,  when  he 
came  and  found  that  I'd  done — for  him — what  he'd  been 
trying  to  make  me  do  for  myself,  he  was  furious.  We 
fought  all  night  about  it.  And  when  I  came  down  the  next 
morning,  ready  to  do  anything  he  wanted  me  to,  he'd  wan- 
dered off  with  Mary.  To  talk  me  over  with  her  again. — 
Tell  her  some  more  things,  I  suppose,  that  I  didn't  know 
about." 

March  had  nothing  to  interpose  here,  it  seemed,  in 
Mary's  defense,  for  her  pause  gave  him  ample  opportunity 
to  do  so.  He  merely  nodded  reflectively  and  loaded  and 
lighted  his  pipe. 

"Well,"  she  demanded  presently,  "can  you  see  now  that 
there's  something  more  to  it  than  jealousy?  Whatever  I  try 
to  do,  he  fights.  When  I  wanted  to  begin  singing  again 
last  spring,  he  fought  that.  And  when  I  wanted  to  give  it 
all  up,  after  he'd  so  nearly  died,  he  wouldn't  let  me.  And 
when  I'd  refused  the  best  chance  I'd  ever  had,  for  him, 
and  then  changed  around  and  accepted  it  because  of  him,  he 
seemed  to  hate  me  for  doing  that.  And  he  simply  boiled 
when  I  told  him  I'd  gone  and  got  the  money,  myself,  from 
Wallace  Hood." 

"Yes,"  March  said,  so  decisively  that  he  startled  her,  "I 
know  all  about  it  up  to  there.  That  was  Thursday  after- 
noon, wasn't  it  ?  Go  on  from  then." 

The  interruption  disconcerted  her.  "There  isn't  much 
more — to  tell,"  she  went  on,  but  a  good  deal  less  impetu- 
ously. "Except  that  we  fought  and  fought  and  fought. 
About  eight  o'clock  that  night  I  said  I  was  going  to  the 
park  to  see  the  performance ; — just  to  get  a  rest  from  talk- 


348  MARY  WOLLASTON 

ing.  Mr.  Eckstein  was  there  and  the  Williamsons  and  James 
Wallace,  so  I  asked  them  all  to  come  home  with  us.  And 
Fournier  and  LaChaise,  too.  And  we  got  on  your  opera  and 
LaChaise  played  part  of  it  and  then  I  read  a  lot  of  it  with 
Fournier.  So  they  didn't  go  home  till  after  three.  John 
thought  I  was  keeping  them  there  in  order  not  to  be  left 
alone  with  him. — Well,  what  was  the  good  of  talking,  any- 
how ?  We  did  get  started  again  on  Friday,  though ;  all  day 
long.  And  Friday  night  we — made  up,  in  a  way.  At  least, 
I  thought  we  did. 

"Well,  and  then  yesterday  morning  Rush  telephoned 
out  from  town  and  said  he  thought  John  ought  to  come  in 
to  see  Mary.  She  wasn't  very  well.  I  told  him  to  go  if 
he  liked.  I  was  feeling  perfectly  awful,  yesterday,  myself — 
and  I  was  billed  for  Thais  last  night.  There  isn't  another 
soprano  up  here  who  wouldn't  have  cancelled  it,  feeling  the 
way  I  did.  But  I  told  John  that  if  he  thought  Mary  needed 
him  more  than  I  did,  he'd  better  go. — I  wish  he  had  gone. 
After  he'd  telephoned  to  say  he  wasn't  coming — he'd  talked 
to  Mary  herself,  that  time — he  kept  getting  colder  and 
gloomier  and  more — unendurable  from  hour  to  hour.  And 
after  the  performance,  we  had  the  most  horrible  fight  of 
all.  He  told  me  I  had  kept  him  away  from  Mary  on  pur- 
pose,— because  I  was  jealous  of  her.  He  said  he  could  never 
forgive  himself  for  the  way  he'd  treated  her — in  order  to 
curry  favor  with  me.  And  he  said  that  the  first  thing  in 
the  morning  he  was  going  to  her.  That's  all. — Oh,  well,  I 
said  a  few  things  to  him,  too.  Do  you  wonder  ?" 

By  way  of  a  flourish,  she  flashed  to  her  feet  again  at  this 
conclusion  (she'd  been  up  and  down  half  a  dozen  times  in 
the  course  of  her  appeal  to  him  as  jury),  and  walked  away 
to  a  window.  But  after  the  silence  had  spun  itself  out  to 
the  better  part  of  a  minute,  she  whipped  round  upon  him. 


SETTLING  PAULA  349 

"Have  you  been  listening  to  a  word  I've  said?"  she  de- 
manded. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  but  with  the  contradictory  air  of  fetching 
himself  back  from  a  long  way  off.  "Truly!  I've  listened 
to  every  word.  And  I  don't  wonder  a  bit." 

"Don't  wonder  at  what  ?" 

"That  you  said  a  few  things  to  him,  too.  You've  got 
a  valid  grievance,  it  seems  to  me.  You  couldn't  be  blamed 
for  quarreling  with  him  over  it  as  bitterly  as  possible." 

She  barely  heeded  the  words.  They  never  did  mean 
much  to  Paula.  But  his  look  and  his  tone  reached  her,  and 
stung. 

"Look  here!"  she  said  with  sudden  intensity.  "Before 
we  go  any  farther,  I  want  to  know  this.  Did  Mary  really 
need  John,  yesterday  ?" 

She  saw  him  turn  pale  and  she  had  to  wait  two  or 
three  long  breaths  for  her  answer.  But  it  came  evenly 
enough  at  last. 

"I  happened  to  turn  up  instead.  And  she's  perfectly  all 
right,  to-day." 

Her  eyes  filled  with  tears.  She  turned  forlornly  away 
from  him  and  dropped  down  upon  a  settee.  "You  hate  me, 
too,  now,  I  suppose.  As  well  as  he." 

He  sat  down  beside  her  and  laid  a  hand  upon  her 
shoulder.  "My  dear,"  he  said — and  his  own  voice  had  a 
break  of  tenderness  in  it, — "I  couldn't  hate  any  one  to-day 
if  I  wanted  to.  And  I  never  could  want  to  hate  you.  If 
there's  anything  I  can  do  to  help  with  John  Wollaston 
.  .  .  But  you  see,  if  you  want  to  keep  your  grievance 
you  don't  need  any  help.  Nobody  can  take  it  away  from 
you.  It's  only  if  you  want  to  get  rid  of  it — because  it's 
making  you  beastly  unhappy,  no  matter  how  valid  it  is— 
that  you  need  any  help  from  me  or  any  one  else.  If  that's 


350  MARY  WOLLASTON 

what  you  want,  I'll  take  a  shot  at  writing  you  a  prescrip- 
tion." 

"Go  crawling  back  to  him  on  my  knees,  I  suppose,"  she 
said  in  a  tone  not  quite  so  genuinely  resentful  as  she  felt 
it  ought  to  be.  "And  ask  him  to  forgive  me.  What's  the 
good  of  that  when  he  doesn't  love  me? — Oh,  of  course  I 
know  he  does — in  a  way." 

His  hand  dropped  absently  from  her  shoulder.  After 
a  thoughtful  moment  he  sprang  up  and  took  a  turn  of  the 
room.  "Do  you  know,"  he  said,  halting  before  her,  "  'in 
a  way*  is  the  only  way  there  is.  The  only  way  any  two 
people  ever  do  love  each  other.  That's  what  makes  half 
the  trouble,  I  believe.  Trying  to  define  it  as  if  it  were  a 
standard  thing.  Like  sterling  silver;  so  many  and  so  many 
hundredths  per  cent.  pure.  Love's  whatever  the  personal 
emotion  is  that  draws  two  people  together.  It  may  be  any- 
thing. It  may  make  them  kind  to  each  other,  or  it  may 
make  them  nag  each  other  into  the  mad-house,  or  it  may 
make  them  shoot  each  other  dead.  It's  probably  never  ex- 
actly the  same  thing  between  any  two  pairs  of  people  .  ." 

"Don't  talk  nonsense,"  she  said  petulantly. 

"I'm  not  a  bit  sure  it's  nonsense,"  he  persisted.  "I  only 
just  thought  of  it,  but  I  believe  I've  got  on  to  something. 
Well,  if  I'm  right,  then  the  problem  is  to  adjust  that  emotion 
to  your  life,  or  your  life  to  that  emotion,  in  such  a  way  that 
the  thing  will  work.  There  aren't  any  rules.  There  can't 
be  any.  It's  a  matter  of — well,  that's  the  word — adjust- 
ment." 

She  could  not  see  that  this  was  helping  her  much.  It 
was  not  at  all  the  line  she'd  projected  for  him.  Yet  she  was 
finding  it  hard  not  to  feel  less  tragic.  She  had  even  caught 
herself,  just  now,  upon  the  brink  of  being  amused.  "Wait 
till  you've  tried  to  adjust  something,  as  you  say,  with  John, 
and  have  had  him  tell  you  what  you  think  until  you  believe 


SETTLING  PAULA  351 

you  do.  When  he's  really  being  perfectly  unreasonable  all 
the  while." 

"Of  course,"  March  observed  with  the  air  of  one  mak- 
ing a  material  concession,  "he  is  a  good  bit  of  a  prima 
donna  himself." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that  ?"  she  demanded.  And  then, 
petulantly,  she  accused  him  of  laughing  at  her,  of  refusing 
to  take  her  seriously,  of  trying  to  be  clever  like  the  Wollas- 
tons. 

"Look  here,  Paula,"  he  said,  and  he  put  so  much  edge 
into  his  tone  that  she  did,  "have  you  ever  spent  five  minutes 
out  of  the  last  five  years  trying  to  think  what  John  was, 
besides  your  husband  ?  I  don't  believe  it.  When  I  spoke  of 
him  to  you,  months  ago,  as  a  famous  person  you  didn't 
know  what  I  was  talking  about.  He  is.  He's  got  a  better 
chance — say  to  get  into  the  next  edition  of  the  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica,  than  you  have.  He's  got  a  career.  He 
had  it  long  before  he  knew  you  existed. — How  old  was  he 
when  he  came  to  Vienna  ?  About  fifty,  wasn't  he  ?" 

"Forty-nine,"  she  said  with  the  air  of  one  making  a 
serious  contradiction;  but  her,  "Oh,  well, — "  and  a  little 
laugh  that  followed  it  conceded  that  it  was  not. 

"He'd  had  a  career  then  for  a  long  time,"  March  went 
on.  "He  was  established.  He  had  things  about  as  he 
wanted  them.  And  then,  out  of  nowhere,  an  irresistible 
thing  like  you  came  along  and  torpedoed  him.  He  must 
have  realized  that  he  had  gone  clean  out  of  his  head  about 
you.  A  man  of  that  age  doesn't  fall  in  love  unconsciously, 
nor  easily  either.  He  must  have  had  frightful  misgivings 
about  persuading  you  to  marry  him.  On  your  account  as 
well  as  his  own.  Because  he  is  that,  you  know.  Conscien- 
tious, I  mean.  Almost  to  a  morbid  degree." 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  conceded,  "they're  both  like  that.  The> 
Spend  half  their  time  working  things  out  trying  to  be  fair." 


352  MARY  WOLLASTON 

He  gave  her  a  quick  look,  then  came  and  sat  down  be- 
side her  again.  "Well,  then,"  he  said,  "we're  on  the  right 
track.  Just  follow  it  along.  You're  the  one  big  refractory 
thing  in  his  life.  The  thing  that  constantly  wants  reconcil- 
ing with  something  else, — at  the  same  time  that  you're  the 
delight  of  it,  and  the  center  and  core  of  it.  And  while  he's 
trying  to  deal  with  those  problems  justly,  you  know,  he's 
taking  on  all  of  yours,  too.  He's  trying  to  see  things  with 
your  eyes,  feeling  them  with  your  nerves,  and  since  he's 
got  a  kind  of  uncanny  penetration,  I'd  be  willing  to  bet 
that  he  can  tell  you,  half  the  time,  what  you're  thinking 
about  better  than  you  could  yourself.  No  wonder,  between 
his  conscience  and  his  desire — your  mutual  desire — he's  un- 
reasonable. And  since  he's  too  old  to  be  reformed  out  of 
his  conscience  that  leaves  the  adjustment  up  to  you." 

"I  don't  know  what  more  I  can  do,"  she  said.  "I've 
offered  to  give  up  everything." 

"Yes,"  he  said  with  a  grunt,  "that's  it.  I  don't  wonder 
he  flew  at  you.  That's  the  thing  you'll  have  to  give  up!" 

He  rose  and  stood  over  her  and  thumped  home  his  point 
with  one  fist  in  the  palm  of  the  other  hand.  "Why,  you've 
got  to  give  up  the  nobility,"  he  said.  "The  self-sacrificial 
attitude.  You've  got  to  chuck  the  heroine's  role  altogether, 
Paula.  That's  what  you've  been  playing,  naturally  enough. 
It  makes  good  drama  for  you,  but  look  where  it  leaves  him ! 
First  you  give  up  your  career  for  him,  and  then  you  give 
him  up  for  the  career  you've  undertaken  for  his  sake. 
You've  contrived  to  put  him  in  the  wrong  both  ways.  Oh, 
not  meaning  to,  I  know ;  just  by  instinct.  Well,  give  that 
up.  Give  up  the  renunciatory  gesture.  Go  to  him  and  tell 
him  the  truth.  That  you  want,  in  a  perfectly  human  selfish 
way,  all  you  can  get,  both  of  him  and  of  a  career.  They 
aren't  mutually  exclusive  really.  It  ought  to  be  possible  to 
have  quite  a  lot  of  each." 


SETTLING  PAULA  353 

"You  think  you  know  such  a  lot,"  she  protested  rebel- 
liously,  "but  there's  only  one  thing  I  want,  just  the  same, 
and  that's  John,  himself." 

"No  doubt  that's  true  this  afternoon,"  he  admitted. 
"You  sang  Thais  last  night  and  several  thousand  people, 
according  to  this  morning's  paper,  cheered  you  at  the  end 
of  the  second  act.  But  I  believe  I  can  tell  you  your  day- 
dream. It's  to  be  the  greatest  dramatic  soprano  in  the 
world — home  for  a  vacation.  With  John  and  perhaps  one 
or  two  small  children  of  the  affectionate  age  around  you." 

Her  face  flamed  at  that.  "John  has  been  talking  about 
me  this  morning !"  she  cried. 

He  shook  his  head.  "It  was  only  a  chance  shot,"  he  told 
her.  "I'm  sorry  if  it  came  close  enough  home  to  hurt.  But 
there  couldn't  be  a  better  day-dream  than  that  and  there's 
no  reason  I  can  see  why  it  shouldn't  come  reasonably  true, 
if  you'll  honestly  try  for  as  much  of  it  as  you  can  get. 
That's  the  prescription,  anyhow.  Give  up  nobility  and  all 
the  heroic  poses  that  go  with  it  and  practise  a  little  enlight- 
ened selfishness  instead.  Perhaps  by  force  of  example  you 
may  persuade  John  Wollaston  to  abandon  about  half  of  his 
conscience.  Then  you  would  be  settled." 

With  that  he  went  back  to  his  score  and  by  no  protest  or 
expostulation  could  she  provoke  another  word  out  of  him. 
She  fidgeted  about  the  room  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  or  so. 
Then  with  the  announcement  that  she  was  going  to  dress, 
left  it  and  went  up-stairs. 

When  she  came  down  a  while  later  in  street  things  and 
a  hat  she  presented  him  with  a  new  perplexity. 

"I've  been  trying  everywhere  I  can  think  of  to  get  a  car," 
she  said,  "and  there  simply  isn't  one  to  be  had.  I  even  tried 
to  borrow  one." 

He  asked  her  what  she  wanted  of  a  car.  Where  she 
wanted  to  go. 


354  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"Oh,  can't  you  see !"  she  cried,  "I  don't  want  to  send  for 
John  again  to  come  to  me.  I  want  to  go  to  him.  It's  too 
maddening !" 

"Well,"  he  said,  with  a  grin,  "if  you  really  want — des- 
perately— to  go  to  him,  of  course  there's  the  trolley." 

She  stared  at  him  for  a  moment  and  then  perceiving,  or 
thinking  she  perceived,  something  allegorical  about  the  sug- 
gestion, she  gave  a  laugh,  swooped  down  and  kissed  him 
and  went. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

THE  KALEIDOSCOPE 

IT  WAS  the  next  Sunday  morning  that  Miss  Wollaston, 
who  had  decided  to  stay  in  town  even  though  the  emer- 
gency she  had  been  summoned  to  meet  was  found  mysteri- 
ously to  have  evanesced  when  she  arrived,  asked  Wallace 
Hood,  walking  home  with  her  from  church,  to  come  in  to 
lunch. 

"I  haven't  the  least  idea,"  she  said,  "whether  we  shall  be 
quite  by  ourselves  or  whether  the  entire  family,  including 
the  latest  addition  to  it,  will  come  straggling  in  before  we've 
finished." 

She  would  not  have  considered  it  quite  delicate  to  have 
owned  to  him  how  very  clearly  she  hoped  to  have  him,  for 
an  hour  or  two,  all  to  herself.  He  would  be  found,  she  was 
confident,  not  to  have  gone  through  the  looking-glass  into 
the  world  of  topsy-turvey  that  all  the  rest  of  them  seemed 
to  be  inhabiting,  these  days.  It  would  be  comforting  to  talk 
with  somebody  who  was  still  capable  of  regarding  things 
right  side  to. 

She  was  much  too  penetrating  a  person  not  to  have  been 
perfectly  aware  from  the  first  that,  astonishing  as  were  the 
facts  John  had  communicated  to  her,  upon  her  arrival  from 
Hickory  Hill  a  week  ago,  other  facts  of  major  importance 
were  being  suppressed. 

She  had  found  her  brother  apparently  occupied  in  the 
normal  Sunday  morning  manner  with  his  newspaper,  and  he 
had  answered  her  rather  breathless  inquiries  about  Mary 
by  saying  that  she  was  all  right.  She  was  finishing  off  her 
night's  sleep  but  would,  he  supposed,  be  down  by  and  by. 

355 


356  MARY  WOLLASTON 

There  was  nothing  the  matter.  Rush  had  been  unneces- 
sarily alarmed,  lacking  the  fact  which  explained  the  case. 
And  then  he  sprang  his  mine,  informing  her  that  Mary  was 
engaged  to  marry  Anthony  March. 

When,  after  a  speechless  interval,  she  had  asked  him, 
feebly,  whether  he  didn't  mean  Graham  Stannard,  he  had 
been  very  short  with  her  indeed.  The  engagement  to  March 
was  an  accomplished  fact,  and  the  sooner  we  took  it  for 
granted  the  better.  He  showed  a  great  reluctance  to  go  fur- 
ther into  detail  about  the  matter  and  he  flinched  impatiently 
from  the  innocent  question; — when  had  he  himself  been 
informed  of  this  astounding  state  of  things.  Well,  naturally, 
since  in  the  train  of  his  answer  the  fact  had  been  elicited  that 
he  hadn't  come  to  town  until  this  morning  and  that  Mary 
had  spent  another  night  alone.  And  it  was  not  Mary  but 
March  who  had,  already  this  morning,  told  him  about  it. 

Beyond  that  John  couldn't  be  driven  to  go.  He  con- 
cluded by  putting  a  categorical  injunction  upon  her.  She 
wasn't  to  expostulate  with  Mary  nor  to  attempt  to  examine 
either  into  her  reasons  for  this  step  nor  into  her  state  of 
mind  in  making  it.  He  was  satisfied  that  the  girl  knew 
what  she  was  doing  and  that  it  represented  her  real  wishes. 
His  sister's  satisfaction  on  these  points  would  have  to  be 
vicarious. 

The  surmise  had  formed  itself  irresistibly  in  Lucile's 
mind  that  John  himself  was  involved  in  this  decision  of 
Mary's.  Had  she  done  this  thing — involved  herself  in  the 
beginnings  of  it,  anyhow, — as  a  desperate  measure  to  bring 
her  father  and  his  wife  together  again?  By  removing  a 
temptation  that  Paula  was  still  in  danger  of  yielding  to? 
She  didn't  put  it  to  herself  quite  as  crudely  as  that  to  be 
sure. 

Certainly  she  had  no  intention  of  asking  Wallace  Hood 
what  he  thought  about  it.  But  perhaps  he  might  have  some 


THE  KALEIDOSCOPE  357 

other  explanation  of  her  niece's  sacrifice.  It  must  have  been 
a  sacrifice  to  something.  An  answer  to  some  fancied  call  of 
duty.  Unless  it  were  a  freak  of  sheer  perversity.  But  this 
was  dangerous  ground  for  Lucile. 

The  queerest  thing  about  it  all  was  the  way  it  seemed — 
magically — to  be  producing  such  beneficent  results.  John 
and  Paula  were  reconciled  by  it, — or  at  least  as  soon  as  it 
happened.  Paula  had  come  down  from  Ravinia  that 
very  day,  had  had  some  sort  of  scene  with  her  husband,  and 
the  two  had  been  almost  annoyingly  at  one  upon  every  con- 
ceivable subject  since.  Something  had  happened  also  dur- 
ing the  week  to  Rush,  which  lightened  the  gloom  that  had 
been  hanging  on  him  so  long, — some  utterly  surprising  inter- 
view with  Graham  Stannard's  father.  Pure  coincidence  one 
must  suppose  this  to  be,  of  course.  Mary's  engagement 
couldn't  have  anything  to  do  with  it.  And  then  Mary  her- 
self! The  girl  was  a  new  person.  Absolutely  radiant. 
Orthodox  conduct  of  course  for  a  just  engaged  girl — but  in 
the  circumstances  one  would  think  .  .  . 

Lucile  saw  that  Wallace  hesitated  a  little  about  accepting 
her  invitation  to  lunch  and  recalled  the  fact  that  he  hadn't 
dropped  in  on  them  once  during  the  week  though  he  had 
known  that  they  were  more  or  less  back  in  town. 

"Why,  yes,  I'll  come  with  pleasure,"  he  said.  "I  don't 
know  precisely  what  sort  of  terms  I'm  on  with  John.  He 
felt  for  a  few  days,  I  know,  that  I'd  been  rather  officious,, 
but  I  may  as  well  have  it  out  with  him  now  as  later.  And 
I  shall  be  glad  of  an  opportunity  to  give  Mary  my  best 
wishes.  I  wrote  her  a  note,  of  course,  the  day  I  read  the 
announcement  of  the  engagement  in  the  newspapers."  He 
added,  "I  certainly  was  in  the  dark  as  to  that  affair." 

"Aren't  you — still  more  or  less,  in  the  dark  about  it?" 
Miss  Wollaston  inquired.  "I  don't  mind  owning  that  I  am. 
Mary's  sense  of  social  values  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  at 


358  MARY  WOLLASTON 

least  adequately  developed.  On  the  surface  one  would  have 
to  call  her  rather  worldly,  I  think." 

"On  the  surface  perhaps,"  Wallace  interposed,  "but  not 
really;  not  at  heart.  Still,  I'll  grant  it  isn't  easy  to  under- 
stand. There's  a  certain  attraction  about  the  man  of  course. 
And  then  there's  his  music." 

"And  Mary,"  Miss  Wollaston  observed,  "happens  to  be 
the  one  utterly  unmusical  person  in  the  family.  She's  com- 
pletely absorbed  in  the  preparation  for  his  opera  however." 
Then  after  a  little  pause,  "She  may  prove  rather  more  ex- 
planatory with  you  than  she  has  been  with  me.  She  seems 
to  take  a  certain  pleasure  in  mystifying  me.  In  saying 
things  in  a  matter-of-fact  way  that  are  quite  astounding. 
That's  the  new  generation,  of  course.  They  talk  a  different 
language  from  mine.  It  will  be  a  comfort,"  she  concluded, 
rather  pathetically,  as  they  mounted  the  high  steps  to  her 
brother's  door,  "to  talk  the  matter  over  quietly  with  some 
one  to  whom  my  ideas  and  standards  are  still  intelligible." 

But  this  comfort  was,  for  the  present,  to  be  denied  her. 
Mary  had  spent  the  morning  in  her  room  writing  notes  and 
was  coming  down  the  stairs  when  the  church-goers  came  in. 

She  negotiated  what  were  left  of  the  steps  in  a  single 
swoop,  gave  her  visitor  both  hands  along  with  the  "Wallace ! 
How  nice!"  that  welcomed  him,  and  then,  drawing  back 
with  a  gesture  which  invited  his  scrutiny,  said,  "Well? 
What  do  you  think? — Oh,  but  thanks  for  your  note,  first. 
I've  just  answered  it." 

Radiant  was  the  word.  There  couldn't  be  any  doubt  of 
that.  And  younger.  There  was  a  twinkle  of  mischief  that 
he  had  to  go  back — five  years,  anyhow,  to  remember  the 
like  of. 

He  had  none  of  Lucile's  feeling  that  decency  required 
one's  joy  over  an  event  of  this  sort  to  be  of  the  chastened 
variety  and  he  brightened  in  instantaneous  response  to  the 


THE  KALEIDOSCOPE  359 

girl's  mood,  but  the  mere  impact  of  her  left  him  for  a  mo- 
ment wordless. 

"You  needn't  try  to  make  me  a  speech,"  she  said.  "I 
know  you're  pleased.  Not  as  pleased  as  you  would  be  if 
you  knew  all  about  it,  but  .  .  ." 

"As  pleased  as  possible,  anyhow,"  he  said.  On  that, 
amicably  arm  in  arm,  they  followed  Miss  Wollaston  into 
the  drawing-room. 

"I  don't  believe  we've  seen  each  other,"  she  said,  "since 
the  night  we  had  dinner  together  at  the  Saddle  and  Cycle, 
weeks  and  weeks  ago." 

"No,"  he  said.    "I  remember  very  well  that  we  haven't." 

Miss  Wollaston  had  drifted  away  from  them  (occupied, 
as  she  so  often  was  when  there  were  no  persons  present  in 
the  formal  status  of  guests,  in  making  minute  readjust- 
ments of  pillows  and  things  as  a  sort  of  standing  protest 
against  the  demon  of  disorder),  and  having  noted  this  fact 
he  went  on: 

"I  didn't  come  for  the  picnic  tea  you  invited  me  to  the 
other  day.  If  I'd  known  how  the  land  lay,  I  shouldn't  have 
sent  a  substitute.  I'm  afraid,  perhaps,  that  was  rather — tact- 
less of  me." 

He  saw  the  queerest  look  come  into  her  face,— -enough 
in  itself  to  startle  him  rather  though  it  wasn't  without  a 
gleam  of  humor. 

"I  was  just  wondering,"  she  explained,  "whether  if  you 
had  come  that  particular  day,  I  mightn't  be  engaged  to  you 
now  instead  of  to  Tony." 

Unluckily  Lucile  heard  that  and  froze  rigid  for  a  moment 
with  horror.  Then  recovering  her  motor  faculties,  she 
moved  in  a  stately  manner  toward  the  door. 

"I  think  if  you  will  excuse  me,"  she  said,  "I'll  go  up 
and  prepare  for  luncheon." 

Mary  gazed  conscience-stricken  from  her  to  Wallace 


360  MARY  WOLLASTOX 

who  was  blushing  like  a  boy  caught  stealing  apples.  "I'm 
sorry,"  she  gasped,  but  not  quickly  enough  for  the  apology 
to  overtake  her  aunt.  "It's  terrible  of  me  to  say  things  like 
that  and  I  do,  every  now  and  then.  Can  you  bear  with  me 
until  I've  had  time  to  quiet  down?  It's  all  so  new,  to  be 
happy  like  this,  I'm  a  little — wild  with  it." 

In  his  nice  neutral  unexaggerated  way  he  told  her  that 
her  happiness  could  never  be  anything  but  a  joy  to  him; 
and  after  that,  when  they  were  seated  side  by  side  upon  the 
cane  davenport  he  asked  about  her  plans ;  when  they  were 
going  to  be  married,  where  they  meant  to  live,  and  so  on. 

"Why,  we'll  be  married,  I  suppose,"  she  said,  "at  the  end 
of  the  customary  six  weeks'  engagement.  There  isn't  a 
thing  to  wait  for,  really." 

"I'm  glad  of  that,"  he  remarked. 

Anybody  but  Mary  would  have  taken  that  at  its  face 
value ;  he  was  glad  that  they  would  have  to  wait  no  longer. 
But  he  flinched  as  she  glanced  round  toward  him  and  at  that 
she  laughed  and  patted  his  hand  reassuringly. 

"We're  doing  everything  correctly,"  she  told  him;  "be- 
ginning with  father's  announcement  of  the  engagement  in 
the  papers,  Tuesday.  We  remain  on  exhibition  during  the 
conventional  six  weeks  and  then  we're  married  at  noon  over 
in  the  Fourth  Church.  Impeccable!  That's  going  to  be 
our  middle  name." 

Mary  used  so  very  little  slang  that  she  was  able  to  pro- 
duce quite  extraordinary  effects  with  it  when  she  did. 

"I'm  glad,"  Wallace  said,  a  little  ruffled  by  the  start  she 
had  given  him,  "that  you  have  not  been  persuaded  to  do 
anything — differently." 

"Who  do  you  suppose  it  was,"  she  asked,  "who  insisted, 
in  an  adamantine  manner,  that  it  be  done  like  that?  It 
wasn't  me  and  it  wasn't  Aunt  Lucile.  It  was  Anthony 
March."  She  added,  after  a  reflective  silence,  "He 


THE  KALEIDOSCOPE  361 

was  right  about  it,  of  course,  because  when  that's  over  it's 
done  with.  And  then — what  he  hasn't  thought  of,  and  I 
wouldn't  have,  most  likely  until  it  was  too  late — he'll  have 
a  friendlier  audience  next  Tuesday  night  than  if  he'd  given 
me  my  way  and  made  a  trip  to  the  City  Hall  with  me  last 
Monday.  I  wanted  to  burn  my  bridges,  you  see ; — and  he 
laughed  at  me.  I  haven't  told  that  to  any  one  but  you. — 
All  the  same,  if  he  thinks,  from  that,  that  he  can  go  on  ac- 
cumulating— millstones  .  .  ." 

"Tell  me  where  you  are  planning  to  live,"  Wallace  said, 
getting  back  as  he  was  always  glad  to  do,  to  firm  ground 
again.  "Not  too  far  away,  I  hope,  for  us  to  go  on  seeing 
a  lot  of  you." 

"Oh,  it's  very  sad  about  that,"  she  told  him.  "I  was 
hoping  to  live  with  him  in  his  secret  lair  over  the  Italian 
grocery.  No,  but  it  was  really  delightful.  One  big  room, 
bigger  than  this,  with  dormers  and  dusty  beams  and  an  out- 
side stair.  He's  had  it  for  years.  It's  not  half  a  mile  from 
here — and  Paula  could  never  find  out  where  it  was!  But, 
unexpectedly,  he's  being  turned  out.  I  could  have  wept 
when  he  told  me." 

"Unexpectedly!"  quoted  Wallace,  the  professional  real 
estate  man  in  him  touched  by  this  evidence  of  lay  negli- 
gence. "March  hadn't  any  lease,  I  suppose." 

"He  didn't  need  any,"  said  Mary.     "He  owned  it." 

"If  he  owns  it  how  can  they  turn  him  out — unexpect- 
edly?" 

"What  he  owned  was  the  second  story.  Well,  he  still 
does,  of  course.  But  when  they  tear  the  first  floor  and  the 
basement  out  from  under  him,  as  they're  going  to  do  next 
week,  his  second  story  won't  do  him  much  good." 

"But,  good  gracious,  they  can't  do  that !"  Wallace  cried. 
"They  must  leave  him  his  floor  and  his  ceiling  just  where 
they  are  now.  And  his  light.  They  can  build  above  and 


362  MARY  WOLLASTON 

below — i  suppose  that's  what  they're  tearing  the  old  build- 
ing down  for — but  that  layer  of  space,  if  he  really  bought 
it  and  has  got  anything  to  show  that  he  really  bought  it, 
belongs  to  him." 

"Do  you  mean  seriously,"  she  demanded,  "that  it's  pos- 
sible to  buy  the  second  story  of  a  building?  It's  like  Pudd'n- 
'head  Wilson's  joke  about  buying  half  a  dog  and  killing  his 
half." 

"Of  course  I  mean  it,"  he  insisted.  "An  easement  like 
that  cost  our  estate  thousands  of  dollars  only  a  year  or  two 
ago.  Serious!  I  should  think  it  was!  Ask  Rodney  Aid- 
rich.  See  what  he  says. — Of  course,  it's  nothing  unless  he 
can  show  some  instrument  that  proves  his  title.  But  if  he 
can  it  might  be  worth  .  .  .  Well,  it's  just  a  question 
how  badly  they  happen  to  need  that  particular  bit  of  land. 
Those  people  we  fell  foul  of  managed  to  hold  us  up  for  a 
tidy  sum." 

She  was  looking  at  him  thoughtfully,  a  faint,  rather  wry 
smile  just  touching  her  lips.  "A  minute  ago,"  she  said,  "I 
was  about  to  fling  myself  upon  your  neck  and  thank  you 
for  so  wonderful  a  wedding  present  to  us  as  that  would  be. 
And  now  I'm  wondering  .  .  .  Wallace,  I  don't  sup- 
pose it  would  strike  you  that  there  would  be  anything — shady 
about  doing  a  thing  like  that." 

"Shady!"  He  was,  for  a  moment,  deeply  affronted  by 
the  mere  suggestion.  Then,  remembering  her  total  ignor- 
ance of  all  such  matters,  he  smiled  at  her.  "My  dear  Mary, 
do  you  think — leaving  my  rectitude  aside — that  I'd  have 
referred  you  to  Rodney  Aldrich  if  I'd  felt  that  there  was 
anything  questionable  about  it?" 

"I  know,"  she  conceded.  "And  Martin  Whitney  would 
feel  the  same  way.  And  father,  I  suppose,  and  Rush. 
Everybody  we  know.  Yet  I  was  wondering  whether  I'd  say 
anything  to  Tony  about  it.  I've  decided  I  will,  but  I'm 


THE  KALEIDOSCOPE  363 

going  to  ask  you  not  to,  nor  to  anybody  else,  until  I've 
talked  to  him.  I'd  like  it  left — altogether  to  him,  you  see." 

He  agreed,  rather  blankly  to  this.  Presently  she  went 
on: 

"I'm  glad  he's  a  real  genius,  not  just  a  fragment  of  one 
as  so  many  of  them  are.  There's  something — robust  about 
him.  And  since  that's  so,  I  don't  believe  we'll  do  him  any 
real  harm;  we — advantage-snatchers,  you  know.  That's  so 
very  largely  how  we  live,  we  nice  people  (it's  why  we're 
able  to  be  nice,  of  course) — that  we  get  perfectly  blind  to  it. 
But  he's  so  strong,  and  he  can  see  in  so  deep,  that  I  guess  he's 
safe.  That's  the  belief  I  have  to  go  on,  anyhow." 

She  sprang  up  and  gave  him  another  pat  upon  the 
shoulder.  "He'll  be  getting  here  in  a  few  minutes,  I  sus- 
pect. Father  telephoned  that  he  and  Paula  were  going  to 
bring  him  down  as  soon  as  his  rehearsal  was  over.  I'm  going 
up  now  to  try  to  make  my  peace  with  Aunt  Lucile." 

After  lunch  she  told  the  family  that  she  had  matters  to 
talk  over  with  Tony  and  meant  to  take  him  for  a  walk.  His 
father  and  mother  expected  them  to  drop  in  at  their  house 
about  five  and  the  intervening  two  hours  would  give  them 
just  about  time  to  "cover  the  ground."  She  was  openly 
laughing  at  her  own  pretense  at  being  matter-of-fact. 

It  was  pretty  hot  for  walking,  her  father  thought.  Why 
not  let  Pete  drive  them  around  a  while  in  the  car  ?  Or  take 
the  small  car  and  drive  herself  ?  But  she  was  feeling  pedes- 
trian, she  said,  and,  anyhow,  the  topic  she  had  in  mind 
couldn't  be  discussed  in  a  motor-car.  They'd  go  to  Lincoln 
Park  and  stroll  around  in  the  shade. 

"And  if  we  get  tired,"  she  added  with  a  flicker,  in  re- 
sponse to  her  aunt's  movement  of  protest,  "we  can  squeeze 
in  among  the  other  couples  on  some  grassy  bank. — Oh, 
Aunt  Lucile,  don't  mind!  We  won't  do  anything — dis- 
graceful." 


364  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"You  see  what  a  cat  I  am,"  she  told  March  as  they  set 
out.  "I  make  her  squirm  without  meaning  to,  and  then, 
when  she  squirms,  I  scratch.  Now  talk  to  me  until  I  can 
get  in  good  humor  with  myself  again." 

"I've  two  or  three  things  to  tell  you,"  he  said.  "I  saw 
Sylvia  Stannard  this  morning.  She  came  to  rehearsal  with 
the  little  Williamson  girl,  and  carried  me  off  bodily  for  a 
talk.  She's  had  a  long  letter  from  Graham. 

"He's  quite  well,"  he  went  on  swiftly,  ignoring  the  gasp 
she  gave,  "and  doesn't  want  to  be,  as  he  says,  fussed  over." 

"Where  is  he?"  she  asked.  "I'll  write  him  a  letter,  of 
course.  Only  you'll  have  to  tell  me  what  to  say." 

"He's  visiting  a  friend — a  college  classmate — on  Long 
Island.  And  he's  already  had  a  job  offered  him  by  his 
friend's  father,  in  an  engineering  office.  He's  a  pretty  good 
engineer,  I  believe.  He  thinks  he'll  accept  it.  Anyhow, 
he  is  definitely  not  coming  back  to  Hickory  Hill.  Sylvia 
attaches  some  significance  to  the  fact  that  his  friend  also 
has  a  pretty  sister,  but  that's  just  the  cynicism  of  youth,  I 
suspect." 

This  last  suggestion  silenced  her — with  another  gasp,  as 
perhaps  he  had  meant  it  to  do.  He  added,  presently : 

"As  for  writing,  I've  already  done  that  myself." 

"You!"  she  exclaimed.     "Where's  the  letter?" 

"It's  already  despatched.  I  wrote  it  as  soon  as  the  re- 
hearsal was  over.  But  I'll  tell  you  what  I  said  in  it.  I 
told  him  I  supposed  he  had  heard  of  our  engagement,  but 
that  I  knew  you  wished  him  to  be  told  of  it  personally.  You 
were  very  fond  of  him,  I  said,  and  the  only  thing  that 
clouded  your  happiness  was  a  fear  that  he  might  not  be  able 
to  share  it.  I  assured  him  that  I  was  completely  in  your 
confidence  and  knew  that  you  had  been  through  a  period 
of  very  severe  nervous  stress,  verging  upon  a  nervous  break- 
down, but  that  I  believed  you  were  on  the  way  to  a  speedy 


THE  KALEIDOSCOPE  365 

recover}-.  And  I  ended  by  saying  that  I  believed  a  line  from 
him  to  you,  setting  some  of  your  misgivings  at  rest,  would 
hasten  it.  And  I  was  his  most  cordially." 

She  didn't  try  to  pretend  she  wasn't  aghast  at  this.  "But 
what  an — extraordinary  letter.  Won't  he  be — furious  ?  At 
you  for  writing  ? — Speaking  for  me  in  a  case  like  that.  Tell- 
ing him  you  knew  all  about  it !" 

"Well,  that  was  more  or  less  the  idea,"  he  confessed, 
with  a  rueful  grin.  "He'll  think  I  stole  you  away  from  him ; 
he'll  think  I  gave  you  the  nervous  prostration  I  hinted  at. 
Heaven  knows  what  he  won't  think!  But,  of  course,  the 
more  of  a  villain  I  am  the  less  you're  to  be  held  responsible. 
And  there's  nothing  insupportable  or — ludicrous  about  a 
grievance  against  another  man.  At  all  events  it  enables  him 
to  get  round  the  statement  you  demolished  him  with.  No, 
you'll  see.  He'll  write  you  a  letter,  correctly  affectionate  but 
rather  chilly,  and  after  that  you'll  be  off  his  mind.  And  if 
the  pretty  sister  Sylvia  alleges  doesn't  exist,  there'll  be  an- 
other one  along  pretty  soon,  who  will." 

She  was  obviously  a  little  dazed  by  all  this.  It  was  the 
first  time  they  had  talked  of  Graham  since  that  night  in  his 
room  and  he  knew  the  bruise  from  that  experience  must 
still  be  painful  to  touch.  So  he  hastened  to  produce  his  other 
item  of  news — also  provided  by  Sylvia. 

"This  is  a  perfectly  dead  secret  of  hers,"  he  began. 
"Told  me  in  sacred  confidence.  She  finished,  however, 
by  saying  that  she  knew,  of  course,  I'd  go  straight  and  tell 
you.  So  to  justify  her  penetration,  I  will.  Sylvia  has  ac- 
counted for  her  father's  amazing  change  of  attitude  toward 
Hickory  Hill.  It  seems  she's  persuaded  her  father  to  give 
Graham's  share  of  it  to  her.  She  told  him — what's  obviously 
true — that  she's  a  better  farmer  now  than  Graham  would 
ever  be.  She  hates  town  and  society  and  all  that,  she  says, 
and  never  will  be  happy  anywhere  but  on  a  farm — anywhere, 


366  MARY  WOLLASTON 

indeed,  but  on  that  farm.  He  was  very  rough  and  boister- 
ous about  the  suggestion,  she  says,  for  a  day  or  two,  but 
finally  he  quieted  down  like  a  lamb  and  gave  in.  He  never 
has  refused  her  anything,  of  course." 

"But  a  partnership  between  her  and  Rush !"  Mary  cried. 
"It's  perfectly  impossibly  mad.  Unless,  of  course  .  .  . 
You  don't  mean,  .  .  ?" 

"Yes,  that's  the  idea,  exactly,"  March  said.  "Only  Rush, 
as  yet,  knows  nothing  about  it.  Hence  the  need  for  secrecy. 
Sylvia  acknowledged  to  her  father  that  she  couldn't  possibly 
own  a  farm  in  partnership  with  a  young  man  of  twenty-three 
unless  she  married  him,  but  she  said  she'd  intended  to  marry 
Rush  ever  since  she  was  twelve  years  old.  She's  confident 
that  he's  only  waiting  for  her  eighteenth  birthday  to  ask  her 
to  marry  him,  but  she  says  that  if  he  doesn't,  she  means  to 
ask  him.  And  if  he  refuses,  she  pointed  out  to  her  father, 
he  can't  do  less  than  consent  to  sell  the  other  half  of  the 
farm  to  her.  She  treats  that  alternative,  though,  as  derisory. 
— And  I  haven't  a  doubt  she's  right.  Evidently  her  father 
has  none,  either. 

"Well,  it  accounts  for  the  change  in  Mr.  Stannard's  atti- 
tude toward  the  farm,  of  course,"  he  concluded.  "A  son's 
supposed  to  thrive  on  adversity.  It  wouldn't  be  good  morals 
not  to  make  things  difficult  for  him  by  way  of  developing 
his  character.  But  where  a  mere  daughter  is  involved  he  can 
chuckle  and  write  checks.  Under  his  tradition,  he's  entitled 
to  regard  her  as  a  luxury.  Anyhow,  your  father  has  noth- 
ing more  to  worry  about  as  far  as  Rush  and  Hickory  Hill 
are  concerned." 

"Life's  a  kaleidoscope,"  Mary  said.  "I'm  tired.  Let's 
sit  down." — They  were  half-way  up  the  park  by  that  time. — 
"Oh,  here  on  the  grass.  What  does  it  matter  ?"  When  they 
were  thus  disposed  she  went  back  to  her  figure.  "There's 
just  a  little  turn,  by  some  big  wrist  that  we  don't  know 


THE  KALEIDOSCOPE  367 

anything  about,  and  a  little  click,  and  the  whole  pattern 
changes." 

"There  are  some  patterns  that  don't  change,"  he  said 
soberly,  but  he  didn't  try  to  argue  the  point  with  her.  He 
knew  too  exactly  how  she  felt.  "Tell  me,"  he  said,  "what 
it  was  that  you  wanted  to  talk  to  me  about." 

She  acknowledged  that  she'd  been  hoping  he'd  forgotten 
that,  for  the  momentousness  of  his  two  items  of  news  had 
left  her,  as  her  talk  about  kaleidoscopes  indicated,  rather 
disoriented.  So  he  threw  in,  to  give  her  time  to  get  round 
to  it,  the  information  that  both  Sylvia  and  the  little  William- 
son girl  had  decided  they  wanted  to  study  music  with  him. 
"I  agreed,"  he  added,  "to  take  them  on,  when  I  got  around 
to  it." 

"Tony,"  she  said,  "I  won't  let  you  do  that.  Not  music 
lessons  to  little  girls.  I  won't." 

"Afternoons?"  he  asked  gently.  "When  I'm  through 
the  real  day's;  work?  It  would  be  pretty  good  fun,  trying 
to  show  a  few  people — young  unspoiled  people — what  music 
really  is.  Dynamite  some  of  their  sentimental  ideas  about 
it;  shake  them  loose  from  some  of  the  schoolmasters'  nig- 
gling rules  about  it ;  make  them  write  it  themselves ;  show 
'em  the  big  shapes  of  it ;  make  a  piano  keyboard  something 
they  knew  their  way  about  in.  That  wouldn't  be  a  con- 
temptible job  for  anybody. — Oh,  well,  we  can  talk  that  out 
later.  But  you  needn't  be  afraid  for  me,  my  dear." 

"That's  what  I  said  to  Wallace  Hood,"  she  told  him; 
"just  before  lunch.  When  I  was  trying  to  decide  to  tell 
you  what  he'd  been  saying. — About  your  room  that  they're 
turning  you  out  of." 

With  that,  she  repeated  the  whole  of  the  talk  with  Wal- 
lace and  the  serio-fantastic  idea  that  it  had  led  up  to. 

He  grinned  over  it  a  while  in  silence,  then  asked,  "Are 
you  willing  to  leave  it  entirely  to  me  ?" 


368  MARY  WOLLASTON 

"Of  course,"  she  said. 

"Well,  then,"  he  decided,  "if  I've  still  got  that  paper— 
and  I  think  I  have  ...  I  copied  it,  I  remember,  out 
of  an  old  law-book,  and  to  satisfy  Luigi's  p^sion  for  the 
picturesque  and  the  liturgical  we  took  it  to  a  notary  and 
got  it  sealed  with  a  big  red  wafer —  Well,  if  I've  got  it  and 
it's  any  good,  I'll  let  Aldrich, — is  that  his  name? — make 
what  he  can  of  it.  I'll  square  it  with  Luigi  afterward  of 
course." 

"It's  a  compromise  for  you,"  she  said  gravely.  "You 
wouldn't  have  done  that  two  weeks  ago." 

He  laughed.  "Folks  use  the  word  uncompromising  as 
if  it  were  always  a  praiseworthy  thing  to  be.  But  it  hardly 
ever  is,  if  you  stop  to  think.  Certainly  if  life's  an  art,  like 
composing  music  or  painting  pictures,  then  compromise  is 
in  the  very  fabric  of  it.  Getting  different  themes  or  colors 
that  would  like  to  be  contradictory,  to  work  together;  de- 
veloping a  give  and  take.  What's  the  important  thing  ?  To 
have  a  life  that's  full  and  good  and  serviceable,  or  to  mince 
along  through  it  with  two  or  three  sacred  attitudes  ? — Wait 
a  minute." 

She  waited  contentedly  enough,  watching  him  with  a 
misty  smile  as  he  lay  upon  the  grass  beside  her  wrestling 
with  his  idea. 

"All  right,"  he  said  presently.  "Here's  the  test  that 
111  agree  to.  I'll  agree  to  do  things  or  to  leave  them  un- 
done, to  the  end  that  when  I'm — sixty,  say,  I'll  have  packed 
more  of  real  value  into  my  life — my  life  as  your  hus- 
band and  the  father  of  your  children — than  that  vagabond 

you're  so  concerned  about  would  have  had  in  his  if — if 
w 

"If  I  hadn't  gone  to  him  a  week  ago  last  night?"  She 
said  it  steadily  enough,  where  he  could  not  say  it  at  all. 


THE  KALEIDOSCOPE  369 

"Yes,"  he  said.    "That's  what  I  mean." 

He  reached  out  for  her  hand  and  she  gave  it  to  him. 
Presently  his  face  brightened  once  more  into  a  grin.  "I'll 
even  promise  to  write  more  music.  Lord,  if  I've  really  got 
anything,  you  couldn't  stop  me.  Come  along.  Father  and 
mother  will  be  looking  for  us  before  very  long  now." 

The  critics  agreed  that  the  premiere  of  March's  opera 
was  a  "distinct  success,"  and  then  proceeded  to  disagree 
about  everything  else.  The  dean  of  the  corps  found  it  some- 
what too  heavily  scored  in  the  orchestra  and  the  vocal  parts 
rather  ungrateful,  technically.  The  reactionary  put  up  his 
regular  plaintive  plea  for  melody  but  supposed  this  was  too 
much  to  ask,  these  days.  The  chauvinist  detected  German 
influence  in  the  music  (he  had  missed  the  parodic  satire  in 
March's  quotations),  and  asked  Heaven  to  answer  why  an 
American  composer  should  have  availed  himself  of  a  de- 
cadent French  libretto. 

The  audience  showed  a  friendly  bias  toward  it  at  the 
beginning  and  were  plainly  moved  by  the  dramatic  power  of 
it  as  it  progressed,  but  they  seemed  shocked  and  bewildered 
by  the  bludgeon  blows  of  the  conclusion  and  the  curtain  fell 
upon  a  rather  panicky  silence.  Then  they  rallied  and  gave 
both  the  performers  and  the  composer  what  would  pass  in 
current  journalese  for  an  ovation. 

The  Wollastons'  friends,  who  were  out  in  pretty  good 
force,  crowded  forward  to  be  introduced  to  Mary's  fiance 
and  to  offer  him  their  double  congratulations.  They  found 
him  rather  unresponsive  and  decided  that  he  was  tempera- 
mental (a  judgment  which  did  him  no  serious  disservice 
with  most  of  them),  though  the  kindlier  ones  thought  he 
might  be  shy.  Mary  herself  found  something  not  quite 
accountable  in  his  manner,  but  she  forbore  to  press  for  an 


370  MARY  WOLLASTON 

explanation  and  let  him  off,  good-humoredly  enough,  from 
the  little  celebration  of  his  triumph  which  she  had  had  in 
mind. 

The  fact  was  that  he  had  come  through  the  experience, 
which  no  one  who  has  not  shared  it  with  him  can  possibly 
understand,  of  discovering  the  enormous  difference  between 
the  effect  of  a  thing  on  paper,  or  even  in  its  last  rehearsal, 
and  the  effect  of  it  when  it  is  performed  before  an  audi- 
ence which  has  paid  to  see  it.  It  was  no  wonder  he  was 
dazed,  for  the  opera  he  found  himself  listening  to  seemed 
like  a  changeling. 

He  worked  all  night  over  it  and  told  LaChaise  the  next 
morning  that  he  had  made  serious  alterations  in  it  and  would 
need  more  rehearsals.  The  opera  had  been  billed  in  advance 
for  a  repetition  on  the  following  Saturday  night,  the  under- 
standing among  the  powers  being  that  if  it  failed  to  get  a 
sufficient  measure  of  favor  the  bill  should  be  changed.  It 
was  touch  and  go,  but  the  nnal  decision  was  that  it  should 
have  another  chance. 

So  LaChaise  agreed  to  March's  request,  ran  over  the 
composer's  revised  manuscript  with  a  subtle  French  smile, 
sent  for  the  timpani  player,  who  was  an  expert  copyist,  and 
put  him  to  work  getting  the  altered  parts  ready,  instanter. 
March  told  Mary  he  was  making  a  few  changes  and  asked 
her  to  stay  away  from  rehearsals  so  that  on  Saturday  night, 
from  out  in  front,  she  might  get  the  full  effect. 

Really,  as  it  turned  out,  he  did  not  need  any  individual 
testimony,  for  one  could  have  learned  the  effect  of  the  new 
ending  from  half  a  mile  away.  When  he  came  back  into  the 
wings  from  his  fourth  recall  he  saw  her  face  shining  with 
joy  through  her  tears.  But  his  heart  sank  when  he  saw, 
standing  beside  her,  Paula.  He  thanked  his  gods  that  Mary 
had  a  sense  of  humor. 

Paula  was  smiling  in  high  satisfaction,  and  she  spoke 


THE  KALEIDOSCOPE  371 

first.  "Well,  stupid,"  she  demanded,  "what  have  you  got 
to  say  for  yourself,  now?" 

"Not  a  word,"  he  answered,  smiling  too,  "except  that 
we  have  to  live  to  learn." 

Then  he  explained  to  Mary.  "That  ending — having  the 
girl  come  back  to  life  again,  to  sing  some  more  after  she'd 
been  shot — was  one  of  the  things  Paula  was  trying  to  make 
me  do,  all  the  while.  And  some  of  the  other  changes 
were,  too." 

"But  not  that  trumpet,"  said  Paula,  and  he  could  only 
blush. 

In  a  moment  of  dead  silence,  just  before  the  crash  that 
accompanied  the  descent  of  the  curtain,  he  had  scored  for 
the  C  trumpet,  muted  and  pianissimo,  a  phrase  in  the  rhythm 
of  the  first  three  bars  of  the  Marsellaise,  but  going  up  on 
the  open  tones  and  sustaining  the  high  G,  so  that  it  carried 
also,  a  suggestion  of  The  Star  Spangled  Banner,  A  fla- 
grant trick,  but  it  had  served  to  remind  the  audience, 
bruised  by  the  horror  of  abomination  it  had  just  witnessed, 
of  the  vengeance  which,  afar  off,  was  gathering. 

"I'd  like  to  know  what  you'd  have  said  to  me,"  Paula 
went  on,  "if  I'd  asked  you  to  do  that !" 

Mary  laughed,  and  pushed  her  lover  toward  the  stage. 
"Oh,  go  back,"  she  said.  "They  want  you  again,  my  dear." 

They  gave  The  O  tit  cry  two  more  performances  during 
the  next  week,  one  of  them  being  the  closing  performance 
of  the  season,  and  by  that  time,  so  far  as  a  single  success 
could  be  said  to  establish  any  one,  March  was  established. 
He  and  Mary  discussed  this  rather  soberly  as  they  drove 
home  in  the  small  car  after  the  convivial  wind-up  supper 
at  the  Moraine,  where  this  fact  had  been  effusively  dwelt 
upon.  Their  wedding  was  now  less  than  a  month  off. 

"I  know,"  she  admitted,  "it  looks  as  if  I  were  all  wrong. 
To  go  on  being  afraid  of — harness  and  millstones  and  all 


372  MARY  WOLLASTON 

that.  But  just  the  same  .  .  .  Oh,  you  can  live  my  sort 
of  life.  That's  been  made  plain  enough.  But  I  wish  I  could 
think  of  some  way  of  making  you  sure  that  I  could  live 
yours,  as  well.  Your  old  one;  the  Chemineau  one.  The 
way  it  was  when  you  came  to  Hickory  Hill." 

A  few  minutes  later  she  gave  a  sudden  laugh.  "Tony," 
she  said,  "will  you  swear  you  will  do  something  for  me — 
without  knowing  what  it  is  ?  Oh,  it's  nothing  very  serious. 
It's  about  our  honeymoon.  A  girl  has  a  right  to  decide 
about  that,  hasn't  she  ?" 

"You've  got  something  up  your  sleeve,  all  right,"  he 
said  dubiously;  but  she  remained  severely  silent  until  he 
gave  in  and  promised. 

"Well,  then,"  she  said,  "this  is  what  our  honeymoon  is 
going  to  be.  We'll  take  one  of  the  farm  Fords — Rush  can 
spare  one,  I'm  sure,  in  October — and  we'll  get  some  camping 
things  and  start  out— oh,  along  any  one  of  your  old  routes — 
without  one  single  cent  of  money.  And  we'll  tune  pianos 
as  we  go.  We'll  live  off  the  country.  Really  and  honestly 
take  to  the  road.  For  a  month.  If  we  can't  find  any  pianos 
we'll  go  hungry — or  beg !  The  one  thing  we  won't  do,  what- 
ever happens,  is  to  telegraph.  After  we've  done  that  we'll 
come  back  and  be — regular  people.  And  I  won't  mind, 
then.  Because,  don't  you  see,  you'll  know.  And  if  it's  ever 
necessary  to  do  it  again,  we'll  do  it  again." 

"There's  no  one  in  the  world,"  he  remarked  in  a  voice 
that  wanted  to  break,  " — no  one  in  the  world  who'd  have 
thought  of  that  but  you.  But,  my  dear,  I  don't  need  any 
reassurance  like  that." 

"Tony,  dearest,  don't  be  solemn,"  she  admonished  him. 
"Won't  it  be  funl" 


THE  END 


RARY  FACILITY 


A     000  702  921 


